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“Least Empathetic Airline”
Review of Southwest Airlines


Reviewed 5 weeks ago

I’ve flown with southwest several times and all have been mediocre or terrible. This particular experience was terrible and I will never fly southwest again. Flight was delayed by 50 minutes. When my first flight from Seattle ended I checked the flight statuses at the airport and it said it my connection flight was STILL delayed. I checked on my Apple wallet 15 mins later, it said the flight was STILL delayed. We waited three gates away and didn’t hear our name the entire time waiting. So, my husband and I go over to board and see there is no line (we were there when our boarding pass stated the boarding time was, 1:30 pm), and they refused to board us as the entire plane had boarded. We received no notification in anyway that our flight was going to depart at the initial time of 1:35 pm. The gate person essentially said “oh well, everyone else boarded on time”. Southwest has a complete disregard for its customers and a lack of effective communication. If we would have received any type of communication (email, text, change in virtual boarding pass, etc) that our flight was on time we would have been at the gate, but we didn’t. We were following our virtual boarding. Me and my husband will never fly with them again. I highly recommend to go with literally ANY other airline. I’ve never been treated like this with Alaska or Delta and I’ve flown with them numerous times.

Date of travel: August 2024
Thank racine l
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
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48 - 52 of 45,918 reviews

Reviewed 5 August 2024

Southwest flights are terrible for customers, I can't fly with airlines like Southwest that don't treat customers well, always playing tricks to sell boxes to earn more from passengers. Too terrible 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻

Date of travel: August 2024
Thank Hoa T
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Reviewed 5 August 2024

If you like waiting for hours at the gate, on the flight before and after take off… I had a full day of flights and I was very much frustrated with the delays and times spent waiting in the plane after we landed.

Date of travel: August 2024
Thank Brooklynn C
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Reviewed 4 August 2024

We were flying out from Orlando to Denver and our flight was cancelled. No explanation for why. Can't get on their site for use the app. Very poor customer service.

Date of travel: August 2024
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Thank Steve P
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Reviewed 4 August 2024

Dear Southwest Airlines, you talk a lot about LUV, but I am sorry to say you failed miserably on that front.

My family had a simple request for some needed compassion. Instead of understanding during a pretty challenging situation, we got yelling and mistreatment.

Here is the story. We asked to allow my family with a cerebral palsy daughter and two minor children with autism to pre-board together. You see, getting our daughter out of her wheelchair with all her tubes and gadgets takes many hands. Leaving behind kids with autism to accomplish that feat just didn’t make a lot of sense to us. But, Southwest apparently felt it was best to split us up and treat us extremely rudely for asking.

Our lesson — and a lesson for anyone that needs a little extra support — do not fly Southwest. I would hate for anyone else to experience what we just did.

Date of travel: July 2024
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    • Value for money
    • Check-in and boarding
1  Thank Eric T
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
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