Holiday travel a burden for local family

#SouthwestStoleChristmas was definitely the theme for our holiday season. Our family was one of the thousands who experienced the frustration and chaos of the Southwest Airline cancellations.

We have been waiting 15 months to see our son Dylan, stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska with the U.S. Air Force. He returned stateside from a four-month deployment in early December. We were so excited to have our son come home for the holidays. We are an unusual family as Dylan and our daughter Taylor are both in the Air Force and our other daughter is a Marine. Holidays with our kids are few and far between and we cherish the limited time we get with them.

We booked Dylan's flight from Burbank, California, to Spokane, Washington, to arrive on Christmas Day and stay until January 3. He traveled to California first to spend some time with the rest of his family and friends. Early Christmas Eve morning, Dylan got a text that his flight had been canceled. We jumped into action and tried to get him booked on the soonest flight out. We attempted to call Southwest several times and got a busy signal. When it did finally connect to their automated system, there were issues with the audio and I was only getting one of every two or three words. When that didn't work my husband and I got on the app and website and saw that all flights were booked for the next several days. We decided to continue checking each day every couple of minutes and finally after hitting the refresh button for two hours, an opening popped up for December 26. We immediately rebooked him on that flight.

The morning after Christmas, we woke up to yet another Southwest cancellation for that day. Again after another several hours, we were able to get him on a flight the following day. Later that day it was canceled as well. There were no emails or texts notifying us and again we started searching for a new flight. The earliest we could get him here was December 29. I decided to call Southwest again to discuss our options. I sat on hold for 5 hours, 54 minutes, and finally gave up due to it being almost 1 a.m. I was mentally and emotionally drained. Dylan was feeling much the same. He was willing to even fly in for a day or two to get to see us. On top of that, with every change he needed to find new modes for transportation to get to the airport, as everyone was back to work.

December 28, his flight still showed active. At this point Southwest was trending all over the U.S. with horror stories of people stranded. My uncle in Nevada posted that their families' flights were canceled without any notice and they now had to drive them more than 10 hours home. Another friend had their son stuck at O'Hare in Chicago for two days. I researched Dylan's flight numbers and both legs of his flight were canceled, even though our confirmation showed active. At this point we all were ready to give up. Luckily, my mom found an Allegiant flight from John Wayne Airport in Orange County to Missoula for the following day and we booked it. With that we had to pay a family member to drive him there, as this airport was much farther than the original airport and Uber was estimated at over $200.

I didn't cancel the Southwest flight due to the fact that I wanted a refund and not a credit. I watched his Southwest confirmation all the way to check-in time and the whole time it showed as active. I decided to see what it would do if I tried to check in and that was the first notification I received that the flights were canceled. Southwest knew those flights were canceled and for two days didn't notify us or change their system to reflect it.

Allegiant, while delayed a few hours, did get Dylan home. I cannot tell you the relief that his dad and I felt when we saw him outside the terminal. Being a military family and Montana residents, we know what it's like to adapt and overcome. There will always be weather issues in the winter and orders that change at the last minute. We get that. With that said, this fiasco was avoidable. Southwest Airlines could have saved its customers so much stress had they just been honest from the beginning and not allowed people to continue to rebook flights that they knew were going to be canceled. Over the last few days I have read stories of people stranded and sleeping on the floor in the terminals. I've heard of families with children being split up. Elderly stranded away from their loved ones. Medications being stuck on planes and lost. Overall, we are blessed that Dylan had loved ones to be near and eventually made it home. I did send a complaint to Southwest that told them that the minimum they should do is reimburse people. They need to account for the time they stole from families and the stress that they caused.

Southwest has now created a webpage where people can request a refund and reimbursement for expenses incurred by the cancellations. If you or a family member was affected you can go to http://www.southwest.com/traveldisruption/ for more information.

Crystal Molidor is Advertising Manager for The Ledger and lives in Trout Creek. If your family had travel challenges over the holiday share them at http://www.scledger.net or email [email protected].