People who made a mistake entering details in refund requests to a special Southwest website were not told to fix the error they simply didn’t get the money. The government also charged Southwest did not provide refunds quickly enough. Some said they never got an email or text notice and couldn’t access Southwest’s website. Southwest also did not keep customers updated about canceled and delayed flights, failing to fulfill a requirement that airlines notify the public within 30 minutes of a change.
Many who called the airline’s overwhelmed customer service center got a busy signal or were stuck on hold for hours. The government said in a consent decree dated Friday that Southwest “violated the law on numerous occasions,” including by failing to help customers who were stranded in airports and hotels, leaving many of them to scramble for other flights.
The assessment stems from nearly 17,000 canceled flights a year ago, which started as a winter storm paralyzed Southwest operations in Denver and Chicago and then snowballed when a crew-rescheduling system couldn’t keep up with the chaos.Įven before the settlement, the nation’s fourth-biggest airline by revenue said the meltdown cost it more than $1.1 billion in refunds and reimbursements, extra costs and lost ticket sales over several months.
