Southwest Airlines will pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million agreement to settle a federal investigation into a debacle in December 2022 when the airline canceled thousands of flights and stranded more than 2 million travelers over the holidays.
Most of the settlement will go toward compensating future passengers, which the U.S. Department of Transportation considers an incentive for Southwest to avoid repeating last winter’s mess.
The government said the assessment was the largest it has ever imposed on an airline for violating consumer protection laws.
Yea, I got stuck in this horseshit. I was stranded in Baltimore Airport for roughly 24hrs. One of the worst experiences of my life. It was freezing fucking cold and I was dressed lightly. The only reason it was even semi tolerable is because I live in New England, I felt awful for my fellow travelers that were huddling under whatever they had on them when their flights were canceled.
My actual saviour in the whole thing was Amtrak. I was able to get a train out from Bmore straight back to PVD where my car was parked (TFGreen). Honestly, if I could take a train and it be the same price I would do it over planes 100% of the time even with 4x travel times. It was wonderful, I could get up and walk around, had a nice (microwaved) breakfast for not exorbitant prices, the seats were comfy for the entire 6-8hr ride.
The worst part was standing in a line for literally 3hrs to talk to SW agent that could do literally nothing.
And I really fucking glad Southwest has to do something, but this should have been an event that forced THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY to modernize. Since this happened I have seen countless videos explaining how the backend of all these airlines is basically on par with telegrams technology wise and the whole thing is shoestrings and prayers that keeps it together and working interoperably.