Canceled. Canceled. Canceled. Southwest meltdown brings holiday misery to airports
Californians with vacation envy had a surefire cure this week: All they had to do was check out the scene at any airport.
The meltdown at Southwest Airlines left tens of thousands of travelers stranded, many without luggage or a clue as to when they would get to their destinations, or how.
At Los Angeles International and Hollywood Burbank airports Tuesday, the lines — for information, for attempts to rebook, for rental cars — snaked for hours. Departure boards all told the same shocking story: Canceled. Canceled. Canceled.
Long-planned family reunions, vacations, work meetings, medical appointments: all canceled.
You’ve probably been there: You are in a rush to get home, and your flight is delayed or canceled.
Thousands of people at both airports sat amid a flotilla of bags, trying to figure out what to do.
Among them were Luis and Ruth Hernandez and their Yorkshire terrier Sissi, who was festive in a Christmas sweater. The Hernandezes, slumped together on a curb outside the Southwest terminal at LAX, had been trying to get to Omaha to visit their daughter and grandchildren. But their connecting flight in Phoenix had been canceled. Rather than risk being stranded in Arizona, the couple decided to rebook, only to learn that the earliest flight is Sunday.
“Sissi was also going to see her family,” Ruth Hernandez said, noting that two other Yorkies were waiting for the trio in Nebraska.
The delay throws their plans into disarray. The grandchildren will be back in school by next week, and family members who took time off will be back at work by the time the grandparents can get there.
“It really screwed up everything,” Luis Hernandez said. “It’s a mess,” added his wife. Only Sissi seemed unperturbed.
Airlines cancel more than 2,800 flights Tuesday morning, the majority of them with Southwest. At LAX, cancellations and delays cause misery.
Across town, at Hollywood Burbank Airport, Roger and Jane Truesdale initially thought they were among the few lucky ones whose flights were going to take off.
Jane, 74, said she had paid $60 for early access and was delighted when she was able to check in for a Tuesday-morning flight home to Denver.
Her delight lasted exactly 15 minutes. Then she got a text from Southwest informing her that the flight had been canceled.
Not knowing what to do, she and her husband shuttled to Burbank airport anyway, hoping to reschedule. It did them no good: Airline officials informed the couple that the earliest flight they could get is Saturday.
That was a nonstarter for the couple, who were visiting their son for the holidays and hadn’t packed enough medication to last that long.
They were searching for a way home on other airlines. By midday, they hadn’t found one.
Other marooned Southwest travelers took to the roads.
Heather Dillion and her family woke up shortly after 4 a.m. Monday to make an early flight to Idaho out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County. But about 30 minutes before the flight was set to take off, she noticed that there was alarmingly little activity at the boarding gate.
“A gate attendant came onto the mic and said something to the effect of, ‘I know a lot of you are waiting. We’re still waiting for our crew. Just think positive thoughts,’” Dillion said.
The hint of worry in the agent’s voice made Dillion think that positive thoughts might not be enough to get the plane off the ground.
The airline disrespected customers, bullied employees and tried to blame the wicked weather that blanketed the East and Midwest for a week’s worth of flight failures.
Dillion, husband Blake and their 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter eventually loaded their luggage and snacks into their truck and made the 18-hour drive to McCall, Idaho.
Dillon said she was glad they had done so.
“Everything’s just so stressful. And it’s so important for us to get this time out in the fresh air and with family and just, you know, a moment to pause,” she said.
“We could have missed [the trip]. Sure,” she added. “But we would have just missed out. And we would have not been with the whole family, and there’s just so much that’s happened recently, in the last few years, that we don’t take family time for granted when we can get it. Hey, we’ll drive 18 hours through the night with two young kids.”
In some cases, even people who drove hundreds of miles could not escape the airport.
Amy Davis, who lives in Indianapolis, left Indiana on Christmas Day en route to Burbank, with a stop in Phoenix.
When she got to Phoenix, she learned that her connecting flight had been canceled.
Davis tried to rebook via Southwest’s customer service line but hung up after being on hold for two hours. Then she was informed that the wait to speak with a Southwest agent at the airport would be five hours.
Davis said she rented a car for $220 and reached a friend’s house in Northridge on Monday afternoon.
“I mean, if you’re going to wait five hours, I might as well drive,” she said.
Her luggage, meanwhile, somehow made it to Burbank. She went to the airport Monday to try to collect it but was unsuccessful. She returned Tuesday — dressed in an outfit hastily purchased at Walmart — to try again.
After waiting for two hours, Davis and a customer service representative found her two suitcases piled among the hundreds stacked up at baggage claim. Shortly after that, her friend picked her up, and the two headed off to celebrate Davis’ 52nd birthday.
“I guess you can say this had a happy ending,” she said.
Even for those willing to pay for a rental car to drive hundreds of miles to their destinations, getting one at the airport was not easy.
The line at the Burbank car rental counter was 50 people deep Tuesday morning — not counting another 100 or so waiting inside and outside the facility.
Oakland resident Luisa Isbell, 31, took deep breaths and listened to music as she hit a third hour outside the car rental station, just after 11 a.m.
She said she and her partner had endured a series of flight cancellations before deciding to drive home to the Bay Area.
“It didn’t take long to actually rent a car, but we’ve been in the queue to pick up a car now for hours,” Isbell said.
The chaos rippled out from the airports. At a grocery store in the northern California town of Davis, a woman was surprised to run into friend Emily Kim on Tuesday afternoon.
Kim and her family were supposed to be in New Orleans, but their flight had been canceled. Standing in front of the deli counter, Kim told her story — of a vacation scuttled and hours on hold. Her friend spontaneously offered up her family’s cabin in Lake Tahoe as a substitute.
Few of the stranded had that sort of luck. But many tried to make the best of the situation.
Andy Robinson of Denver spent Tuesday morning waiting in line at LAX for a hotel voucher after his flight was canceled.
He and his family had come to Los Angeles to watch the Denver Broncos play the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The Broncos lost, 51-14.
“That just added to our misery,” Robinson said.
Still, he said, “I’m trying to look at it positively. I’m in California. I’m in flip-flops.”
Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.
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