Southwest Airlines - Trying to help others avoid a horrible experience

I had SWA tickets from ONT to ATL with a connection in Dallas. Southwest clearly lost control of their operation on 1/30-31 and stranded me in vegas.

Ok, there was ice in Dallas, but I would have been happy to keep my hotel room and car another day to avoid being stranded. They kept telling me to come to the airport as they had rescheduled my flight. Instead they cancelled my flight FIVE times and promised me each time that I could reach my destination on time. I asked if there was any chance of missing my connection and SW said no.

I think they were fabricating stories because they got me to give up my hotel room, rental car. One time in ONT they pushed off from the gate and rode around on the runway and then parked right back at the gate. It was hot in the plane and full of fumes. I got sick on the plane.

Once parked again I got off the plane and tried to talk to some one, ANYONE, who could help but there was just one ticket person and a long line of angry customers. I never was able to schedule another connection in Ontario. At one point they said they would take my luggage off the plane and then said they wouldnt. So I got back on the plane prefering to be stranded with luggage rather than without.

These Southwest people are rude and crude and have no idea what they are telling people! Why do they feel they have to tell people things that aren't true? Is it just some power trip and they enjoy wrecking the plans of their customers? Anyhow, I eventually landed in Vegas and once again there was no one who knew what was going on.

No one could tell me how to get home to Atlanta. I had a boarding pass for the flight to Atlanta but when I tried to use it they said the boarding pass was no good. Some SWA jerk grabbed it out of my hands and said "Hmm, it says it's for Atlanta". Anyhow, they told me to go talk to customer service so I lost my seating assignment.

At "customer service" they printed out another ticket and said to go get on the plane. I tried and again the boarding pass was not working. The whole time they were acting as if this was my fault, even though it was their obvious flawed way of doing things. Any airline this bad should not be allowed to fly.

They are completely unsympathetic. Just rude and nasty if you express simple concerns about your schedule or luggage. In one breath they blame it on flight control, tell you what flight to get on, and then it all turns out to be bogus information. Keep in mind that Southwest perpetuated this mess over three days.

Maybe somewhere someone was working on it but you could have fooled me. They looked like idiots and no one had any confidence in what they were saying.The FAA needs to shut down this type of operation because a loss of control like this is not just a headache for travellers but also inherently unsafe. Southwest made a lot of people desperate for no reason. Ok, there was ice in Dallas but Southwest made the situation 10 times worse by telling people their flights were still taking off and convincing people to come to the airport.

This made some people a bit panicky for no reason other than a few airline people wanting to look like they had all the answers. In fact their systems were failing, their people were confused and untrained, and they reacted rudely and aggressively.