The Journey Home _or_ Three Days of the Southwest 737.

Forward

I should state, up front and for the record, that every single Southwest employee we encountered was courteous, helpful, and gracious even when under what must have been phenomenal pressure. The problem here is the policies from the top that cut costs everywhere from maintenance to headcount; causing what could be an extremely busy day to become a cascade of unrecoverable problems.  That's not the fault of the customer facing folks, the fault is squarely at the top.

I should also mention before going any further that my partner Laurie was an absolute trouper during this whole ordeal and I can think of few other folks who could hope to equal her.

By now there have been more than a few articles written about Southwest's meltdown on April 10th, 2024.  Here are a few of them, though.

https://viewfromthewing.com/post-eclipse-turmoil-southwest-airlines-melts-down-at-austin-airport/

https://www.chron.com/culture/article/southwest-delays-austin-19397525.php

https://www.atxjetsetter.com/post/another-day-another-southwest-meltdown-in-austin

Occasionally I poke myself to see if I'm genuinely home.

That's probably an overstatement, but those three days were an air travel ordeal worse than December 2022 (but less disappointing, to be fair). It's probably best to begin at the beginning.

2024.04.10

We were returning from the hill country of Texas (Canyon Lake, to be precise) and a delightful eclipse vacation to Austin for a direct flight back to Raleigh. The weather (which had been cloudy during the actual eclipse) was almost obscenely good.  Clear and not too hot and very dry.  Perfect weather for viewing an eclipse that had happened two days ago.

We got into town and hit up a cute little sushi place near the airport for a very light meal (counteracting the heavy, rich meals we'd had over the vacation). We took a little walk post-lunch and got to the airport and turned in the car, probably around 1p, as our flight was at 3:40p.

Walking towards the terminal, we realized something was awry.  There was a huge line stretching away from the terminal, and it was the Southwest baggage check-in line.  With no other choice to make, we got in line and started threading our way through the multi-folded, half-outdoor line (shown below).

There are lots of reasons Southwest claimed this happened: Increased traffic due to the eclipse and a few other Austin events. The aforementioned bad weather the night before cancelling a bunch of flights. A problem with an airport bag belt.  But, none of the other airlines had this problem.  All except Southwest were moving smoothly with the increased traffic.

3:40p came and went and we still hadn’t made the bag check-in.  We’d gotten much closer, but they weren’t pulling folks out of line to try and make their flights because (it seemed) there were simply too many of us to manage.

At around 4:40p or so, we made it to the bag check-in.  We were rebooked, and told there were no hotel vouchers available.  We stumbled back out into the light of day, bewildered, still seeing a huge line.  Sloughing off our masks we sat down while I called the place we’d stayed last Friday and secured a room. Waiting an interminable time for the shuttle and we got to the hotel, ordered a pizza delivery, and crashed.

There was no warning from Southwest about arriving extra early.

2024.04.11

We got up early, put on sunscreen and hats and more comfortable shoes, bought some bottled water, and steeled ourselves and got to the airport five hours early at noon.  This turned out to be too early as everything was running smoothly today and we weren’t able to check our bags until four hours before our flight. Waiting around, we eventually checked our bags and sorted out our boarding passes to find out we were leaving at 4:40p (that part we knew) for a flight connecting to Raleigh through Nashville (that part was a surprise, I never got e-mail confirmation of the change).  We met Dad in the airport (he was heading to Roanoke through Charlotte), hung out for a while and made our way to the gate.

Because of a gate change and other travel, we were late starting to board.  Because of so many carry-ons, we were late completing boarding, and also there were numerous recalculations for fuel due to the weight of all the carry-ons.  A few people decided to get off at this point, forcing more recalculations and paperwork.  We took off over an hour late.

Needless to say, we missed our connection.

The Nashville agent at the gate was pleasant enough, giving us a voucher immediately for a hotel and travel vouchers worth $200, and rebooked us on the spot.  We had a flight leaving at 11:45a the next day.  We picked up our bags and headed outside to call for the shuttle, like the gate agent had said.

It took several tries to get through and there were lots of disconnections, but eventually a very harried sounding dude directed us to the shuttle stop and told us to wait.  There were a few other folks there from the flight (one was dangerously close to missing a wedding the next day) and in a half hour the shuttle came and, uh, ferried us to the hotel.

There was one guy at the counter (the harried guy from the phone) checking folks in as fast as he could while trying to answer essentially the same question we’d asked of him over the phone again and again and again and again. He gave us all a free water from the cooler and got us checked in and in our room, though.

After getting settled in, we headed back down to grab some food from the little snack bar area.  We found two veggie wraps and a beer and some chips and in the process of waiting in line again to charge them to the room (we’d provided a credit card for sundries) we discovered that Southwest had overbooked the hotel and people were about to show up with vouchers but no more rooms to stay in.  Fortunately for us (but not the guy at the counter) we slipped away before that shuttle arrived.  We pounded the wraps and crashed for the night.

2024.04.12

Getting up early again, we discovered that today’s flight was connecting to Raleigh through Atlanta. Remember that every airport in this… journey has a direct flight to RDU.  I suddenly had visions of endless missed connections causing us to rotate through Austin, Nashville, Atlanta for all eternity. Austin, Nashville, Atlanta.  Austin, Nashville, Atlanta. Never again reaching Raleigh. Austin. Nashville. Atlanta.

Snapping out of it, Laurie and I did a quick vibe check. We were now only 8 hours from Raleigh. Should I just rent a car and drive it; damn the cost?  After a few minutes discussion, we decided that this ordeal, on top of the not perfect rest that comes with a vacation sometimes, had worn us down too much to embark on an 8 hour drive.  I simply did not feel up to it.  We checked out (the desk clerk of the morning sent the total bill to Southwest) and caught the shuttle to the airport.

Check in was smooth and uneventful, boarding was mostly quick and efficient, but we still inexplicably dallied on the ramp for what seemed like an eternity but in reality was probably only fifteen or so minutes.  Still, the flight to Atlanta was short and our connection was tight and so I was worried that Southwest was unable to make a connection to Raleigh.

But, in a welcome spot of luck, not only was the gate for the connection the same as our arrival gate, but the plane was the same as our arrival plane, changing only in flight number and some crew.  We hopped on in short order, now uncensored about loading times or delayed take off, and were mercifully back on the ground in Raleigh and in possession of our luggage by 4:15p.  We shuttled out to the lot, got Laurie’s car and drove home, blinking in disbelief.  A quick trip to get takeout and we were in bed by 8:30p, fully and truly exhausted and happy to be finally home.

Carry-On Culture Needs to Change

There is a fundamental truth about domestic air travel in the US that everyone seems to be ignoring: 

There is not enough overhead bin space on a current airplane for everyone to bring a maximum size carry-on.

Like, we all know this, right? It's like somewhere between one half to two thirds of the passengers can have a full-size carry-on and then we're out of overhead bin space.  It's probably like three fifths, but I haven't actually done the math. 

Every domestic flight I've been on in recent history has been packed to the max with people and baggage, necessitating folks who are boarding last checking their bags and adding delays to the departure time and potentially foiling connections.  Two out of my last four trips have had this issue. One disastrously.

And of course they do this on the jetway, because even though the gate agents always ask folks to check their carry-ons because "we have a full flight today" (we always seem to have a full flight today) nobody is going to do it unless they're made to do it.  The process of determining that is always a depressingly long and manual process of checking bin space several times, rearranging bags, and firmly putting your foot down and saying "no, you have to check your bag".

I'm not going to blame passengers, though.  I like to check bags, but if I had a roll-away carry-on this is exactly how I'd behave, too.  Let someone else check their bag.  Let someone else take a different flight.  I might could do either on a return flight, if I didn't have a connection to make, but there's almost always a connection to make.

I'd be interested to know when the full-size carry-on form factor became a thing, and how it was decided, because it's clear the conditions have changed and nothing else has changed with them.  Did it ever work better?

So. What to do?

Hell, I don't know.  I'm not a frequent flier.  I routinely check my bags and everything I carry on either fits neatly under the seat in front of me or is a CPAP that usually easily slips in the overhead bin between the nearly ubiquitous full-size carry-ons.  But here are some ideas that might speed things along (assuming on time is your metric here).

1. Smaller max carry-on size. I like this one the best?  But I'm a weirdo who checks his bag so I could be wrong here. If we shrink the carry-on size so that everyone (or at least most people) could have one, the problem solves itself. Bags over that size get checked automatically at the gate.  This still might cause delays in boarding, though.
2. More gate agents. A single gate agent means things GRIND TO A HALT when you start checking carry-ons. Having a line for carry-ons to divert to when you get over a certain number where they get their bag checked and then can continue on while the rest of the passengers can cruise on through serves all my desires neatly.  Just one more person could fix this.
3. No more checked bag fee. Is this the largest driver of carry-on culture? No clue. The other driver is "What if my bags are lost?", but I feel like checked bag fees drove this more and now it's ingrained even if some airlines don't do it.

The problem, of course, is that all these things cost money that the airlines are unwilling to spend because the penalty for a failed connection or outright missed flights simply isn't high enough to affect the bottom line. It should be, more than just hotel/food/travel vouchers or whatever.  There should be real financial penalties for this, because delays cascade across airports and airlines and bung the whole system up.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on this. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight. I know you have choices on what to read on the internet, and I'm glad you chose this.