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Rebooking for a flight cancelled by Southwest

hmkorn
Explorer C

I received a notice that my flight was cancelled as I was in the car heading to the airport. Contacted Southwest and was told it was a maintenance issue and they would rebook on the next flight. However, when they rebooked, my boarding position went from A to C for both the new flight and the new connecting flight, and they said they couldn't do anything about that. It seems they should offer an A1-15 at no charge or at least allow me to board when the families board after the A group. They said I would have to address this with the ticket agent at the airport. By then there could be dozens of others trying to do the same thing.

3 REPLIES 3

Re: Rebooking for a flight cancelled by Southwest

elijahbrantley
Aviator A

I definitely understand your frustration! For all the things I love about SW’s boarding process, last minute changes bring the negative you describe: losing your boarding position. 

 

The way SW reserves spots in line, it isn’t possible to accommodate folks who have to be rebooked toward the front of the line because those spots are either already reserved by the original passengers or because there may not be enough spots in the A1-15 section to accommodate all those who rebooked. 

 

Although it is unfortunate when it happens, I choose to look at it like this: if there was a delay or cancellation, I’m just happy to have any seat to make it where I am going!

 

FWIW, if you ever end up flying enough to make A List status, you can indeed always board after the A group if you don’t actually get an A boarding position.

 

Happy flying!

-A List, Companion Pass holder

Re: Rebooking for a flight cancelled by Southwest

dfwskier
Aviator A

Hi.

 

As Elijah said, being rebooked is never fun. There are a limited number of A boarding positions on every flight, and it is likely that people scheduled for the flight already have all of them.

 

It would have been no different on an airline with assigned seats as all the "good"  seats would have been reserved by people scheduled to take the flight.

 

Hopefully it won't happen to you again in the future.

Re: Rebooking for a flight cancelled by Southwest

DancingDavidE
Aviator A

@hmkorn wrote:

I received a notice that my flight was cancelled as I was in the car heading to the airport. Contacted Southwest and was told it was a maintenance issue and they would rebook on the next flight. However, when they rebooked, my boarding position went from A to C for both the new flight and the new connecting flight, and they said they couldn't do anything about that. It seems they should offer an A1-15 at no charge or at least allow me to board when the families board after the A group. They said I would have to address this with the ticket agent at the airport. By then there could be dozens of others trying to do the same thing.


Just as the others said, the A positions are already assigned A16-A60. They won't give out the A1-15 spots since those are for business select that pay a much higher ticket price, or pay for the extra position. 

 

As was mentioned, and when you talk about "dozens" of others going for the same thing - some number of each of those dozen will already be A-list customers who had the A16-A60 numbers on your canceled flight - they will board at "A61" exactly as you described without taking any other action.

 

If you had an A-number on the previous flight you could ask the gate agent about boarding A61 also.

 

 

 

 

 

Home airport MDW, frequent visitor to MCO to see the mouse.