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Flight status change notification

vince808
Explorer C

A couple of weeks ago, I had a flight scheduled out of Midway. Due to weather conditions my flight was cancelled, only I never got any sort of notification from SWA. I hopped into a Lyft and rode to MDW from downtown. I made sure to check the status of my flight during the drive to the airport. When I arrived (an hour before departure), I tried to pull up my boarding pass, to which it directed me to see a counter agent. It was only then that I was told my flight had been cancelled. I never got a notification on my phone! Why?

 

The gate agent was able to book me for a flight the next evening. The annoying part is that I'm now stuck with paying Lyft $60 for a wasted round trip to MDW! I know the weather is uncontrollable, but SWA should be able to make a go/no-go decision based on weather earlier than 1 hour prior to departure before people start heading to the airport! Who knows if it was cancelled right after I arrived at the airport or if it was cancelled earlier in the day I was never notified. 

 

I submited an SR# inquiry to SWA over two weeks ago about my Lyft fee, and have yet to hear back from CS. In addition, why is it that every single time I book a flight, I have to input my contact info!? I fly almost monthly with SWA, I'm logged into my SWA account, and every single time it asks me to enter an email addres where to send the flight info. I can understand if I want share my itinerary with others, but for me its always the same email, every single time. Why cant this be auto populated? 

 

6 REPLIES 6

Re: Flight status change notification

dfwskier
Aviator A

Morning.

 

Well you asked about two different things.

 

1) the airline cancels a  flight when it knows it won't be able to fly it.  Sometimes that is only hours before flight time for example if the aircraft it plans to use can't get to your airport or if the crew scheduled to fly the plane get there either. It happens.

 

2) If you have your profile properly entered on the website, it should auto populate when you book a flight. Mine does. To verify this, log on to you SW account, and move down the left side of the ensuing page to "my preferenes" "personal" to verify your information (be sure to look at both profile and notify).

 

Then when booking a flight, the passenger and payment information page should auto populate:

 

a) the who is flying section

b) the secure traveller information (if you have any)

c) YOU ALWAYS need to input your (how do we contact you" information

d) payment method should show your saved credit card

e) "send your receipt" should auto populate with your profile listed e-mail.

Re: Flight status change notification

vince808
Explorer C

Thanks for the feedback.  c) YOU ALWAYS need to input your (how do we contact you" information is really what I meant. I think that field should auto populate (with the option to update as needed), since my contact info is static. I've been flying with SWA for years, it seems like lately I've not been getting flight status change notifications. On another occasion, I found out my flight was delayed only after opening the SWA app on my phone. Never got an email or text. 

Re: Flight status change notification

chgoflyer
Aviator A
Solution

@vince808 wrote:

Thanks for the feedback.  c) YOU ALWAYS need to input your (how do we contact you" information is really what I meant. I think that field should auto populate (with the option to update as needed), since my contact info is static. I've been flying with SWA for years, it seems like lately I've not been getting flight status change notifications. On another occasion, I found out my flight was delayed only after opening the SWA app on my phone. Never got an email or text. 


 

Unfortunately, Southwest has never been good at flight change notifications. I often never receive them at all, or sometimes receive them hours later, following the affected flight. I've tried using all options -- text, phone and email -- and none seem to work any better than others. This is, sadly, a point where Southwest fails more often than not. Because of this, I've found it prudent to frequently proactively check flight status, and to use sources such as FlightAware, Flight Tracker and Google since the Southwest website is also often not updated with the latest info.

Re: Flight status change notification

SWDigits
Aviator A

@chgoflyer wrote:


I've found it prudent to frequently proactively check flight status, and to use sources such as FlightAware, Flight Tracker and Google since the Southwest website is also often not updated with the latest info.


+1 for FlightAware.  One of my favorite features on the site is to pull up the flight you're tracking, then click "Where is my plane now?" (it's almost at the top of the page).  When you click it will bring up the location of your inbound aircraft and show how early or late that flight is running!


Customer | Home airport DCA

Re: Flight status change notification

vince808
Explorer C

Thank you chgoflyer & SWDigits! I thought it was just me experiencing the lack of change notifications. It makes no sense in this day and age with technology that SWA can't provide accurate flight status updates. This is a customer service issue which SWA is supposed to be big on. Hopefully they will improve this. In the meantime I will download a flight tracker app and use that. Thank you for the suggestion! 

Re: Flight status change notification

chgoflyer
Aviator A

FYI: The easiest way to get current flight info is to just type "WN" (the code for Southwest) and your flight number into Google (example, "WN 3265"). Within the first few links will be FlightAware and Flight Tracker.