Early on Friday, December 23, Juan José Gutiérrez boarded a Southwest airline plane bound for Oakland, California, returning to Los Angeles that same day at night. It was a business trip of a few hours.
She never imagined that the winter storms on the country’s east coast would cause such air chaos that she would be forced to return to Los Angeles not in the comfort of her flight but in a rental car, accompanied by 5 complete strangers she met at the airport, to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas with your family on time.
“My return flight from Oakland was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on December 23, but already at the airport they told me that it was delayed and we would leave at 8:20 p.m. But again, they announced another delay and now we would leave at 9:20 pm.
However, as the departure time approached, they were informed that the flight had been definitively cancelled.
“At that moment they sent us to make a line at a counter where they would give us alternatives for the following flights. The line was huge, but after an agonizing wait they gave me the option of taking a flight to Phoenix at 10:20 pm to fly to Los Angeles from there.
Around midnight, when Juan José arrived in Phoenix, he found the news that the flight to Los Angeles had also been cancelled; and that now the only option was to fly to Las Vegas, and from there to the Los Angeles city.
Already in the city of eternal fun, Las Vegas, he had no trouble finding a flight that would bring him home to Los Angeles.
“It was a large plane that filled up quickly. We boarded it happily, plus those who had already been stranded at the airport for several days. He touched my window; and finally, I was able to sigh with relief. The flight attendant asked us to thank the captain because he had agreed to take us to Los Angeles, even though he had already finished his shift.
But when Juan José thought he could drop the body and was beginning to fall asleep, waiting for the plane to take off, the flight attendant’s voice woke him up with the unpleasant news that the captain had decided not to travel to Los Angeles.
There were no further explanations, only that for that night there would be no flight to Los Angeles, and the passengers had to vacate the plane.
“It was incomprehensible. We were all in our seats. The plane was ready: the pilots, the equipment, and suddenly they cancel”.
Then came a collective despair. It was already early morning.
“We returned to making long lines at the counters when the staff announced over the loudspeaker that their shift had ended and they had to go home, and consequently we had to wait for the other work team to enter.
He says he doesn’t even know how, but he found two Latinos who were talking about renting a car to return to Los Angeles together.
“I’m in,” I told them; and another lady who was carrying a 5, 6-year-old girl also raised her voice to join”.
This is how a group was assembled with the unknown travelers, who, angry and desperate, left the Las Vegas airport and boarded a shuttle which led them to the car rental site.
“After waiting our turn in line, Avis quoted us $520 for a Van to be delivered to Los Angeles International Airport; We did a lot and we went to ask Budget. It got worse, they wanted to charge us $946. And it’s not that there weren’t rental cars, there was a large fleet of cars, but it was obvious that the rental businesses were making a killing, taking advantage of the air disorder.”
Faced with the exorbitant charge that they wanted to make at Budget, they rushed back to Avis, and rented the MiniVan for $520.
“We got $125 per person. I also gave the person who put his credit card $20 for gasoline.”
All awake, Juan José says that they arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport around 10 in the morning, and he went to pick up his car that he had left parked there.
“The $35 I was going to pay for a few hours of parking turned into $112.”
In the end, after that experience, he says that he was able to get home to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas with his family and his elderly mother.
“But all travelers, we lived that night a very stressful and frustrating experience. It was horrible!”.
And it wasn’t until noon on December 24, when he was already in Los Angeles, that he received a text from Southwest to inform him that his flight had been rescheduled for Monday, December 26 at 5:10 am.
“That awful! these people thought that I was going to sleep three nights in the Oakland airport, and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas there”.
For many travelers like Juan José, Christmas Eve turned into a nightmare as thousands of flights were canceled due to winter storms and staffing issues caused chaos across the United States.
Most of the big airlines canceled or delayed thousands of flights. Until this Monday, Southwest Airlines had canceled at least 70% of the flights, more than 2,600.
Southwest also canceled 62% of its flights for Tuesday and Wednesday.
In a statement, Southwest acknowledged the delay in its flights caused by bad weather as unacceptable.
“We are at work, putting safety first to urgently address large-scale disruptions, rebalancing the airline, repositioning crews and our fleet to better serve everyone who plans to travel with us.”
They said they were fully staffed and prepared for the upcoming holiday weekend as severe weather swept across the continent where Southwest is the largest airline in 23 of the top 25 US travel markets.
“These operational conditions forced us to make daily changes to our flight schedule at a volume and magnitude, and we still have the tools to recover and operate at full capacity.”
While they recover, they have made the decision to continue operating on a reduced schedule, at a third of their schedule for the next few days.
“We are working to reach Customers whose travel plans will change. For specific information and available options, please refer to: southwest.com/traveldisruption.
“With no other concern greater than safety, we share the goal of taking care of each one of our customers. We acknowledge that we failed and sincerely apologize.”