Hello, Southwest and Tom Nealson, My high school group too one of those affected by the grounding of the Max 8s. My issue was that I was on a high school broadcasting trip and our return flights were canceled. I did receive a phone call from Southwest but, it while we were in the air flying to our conference on the West Coast. We were scheduled to return to the east coast on Monday morning. I did not get an email on my school account nor did I get another phone call. When I went to check-in on our flights on Sunday early morning and discovered that all the flights were canceled! The only flight we could be put on was on the upcoming Friday of that week. As you can imagine, I am on the west coast with 14 high school kids and two instructors and no hotels or food arrangements for an additional week. Because of the flights and issues Southwest I was left with no choice but to get the kids on another flight with a different carrier. This cost my school an additional $7,900.00 (once refund is applied) on a trip we did not have the school funds to cover. We did make it home safe but now the school are stuck with cost we did not expect. In fact it may cancel our next years trips as will not have any budget unless we can raise the funds to cover the overages. I know that all this is not totally on Southwest shoulders but I wish there was a way to clear up this issue. We have always flown Southwest with out kids "twice a school year" as the staff is very friendly, its not over priced to where the students cannot afford it and our bags fly free!!! I just wish there was an easy way to fix my school budget now. 😞 . Thanks for understanding Tom.
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