Wanna get away?
Well, a variety of Southwest passengers are unable to, because the airline continues to cancel flights throughout the nation and at Boston Logan International Airport throughout one of many busiest journey weeks of the yr.
Southwest’s “unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays” this week following the nationwide main winter storm has now sparked the feds to take a detailed take a look at the airline. And politicians like Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey are calling on the corporate to pay passengers whose flights have been canceled.
Southwest Airlines had nixed 30 flights at Boston Logan as of 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, which accounted for greater than half of the airport’s whole of 53 flight cancellations.
“They (Southwest) are not a major carrier at Logan, but their cancellations are impacting passengers and it may take some time for them to resolve their issues,” a Massport spokesperson stated in a press release.
“We would urge passengers to check with their airline for the best information about their flight before coming to the airport,” the Massport spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on Tuesday spoke with union leaders and the CEO of Southwest Airlines — stressing that the U.S. Department of Transportation expects the airline to “meet its obligations to passengers and workers and take steps to prevent a situation like this from happening again.”
“USDOT is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays & reports of lack of prompt customer service,” the Department of Transportation tweeted. “The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”
Markey, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, stated Southwest is “failing consumers” throughout the very busy vacation journey week.
“Instead of a holiday spent celebrating with family and friends, passengers are sleeping in airports or desperately trying to reach customer service agents,” Markey stated in a joint assertion with Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
“For those travelers whose holidays have been ruined, there is no real way for Southwest to make this right,” the senators added. “But the company can start by fairly compensating passengers whose flights were canceled, including not only rebooked tickets, ticket refunds, and hotel, meal, and transportation reimbursement, but significant monetary compensation for the disruption to their holiday plans.”
Southwest Airlines in a press release known as the influence on clients “unacceptable.”
“And our heartfelt apologies for this are just beginning,” Southwest added. “We’re working with Safety at the forefront to urgently address wide-scale disruption by rebalancing the airline and repositioning Crews and our fleet ultimately to best serve all who plan to travel with us.”
The airline stated it was absolutely staffed and ready for the vacation weekend when the most important storm swept throughout the nation.
Southwest stated, “As we continue the work to recover our operation, we have made the decision to continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one third of our schedule for the next several days.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”
