Southwest changed both of our nonstop flights in June!

So we were supposed to fly out of ORD at 11:30am on a Tuesday and arrive in LAS at 1:40pm. It got changed to 3:10pm and arrive at 5:05pm! Our return trip was supposed to leave on Saturday at 5:30pm arriving at 11:20pm to ORD. Now we are leaving at 1:35pm arriving at 7:40pm to ORD! This happened to my son also. He is flying out of PDX. His times aren't quite as drastic as ours. Is this happening to anyone else? Better check!

 

I believe they will let you switch to directs out of MDW if those are better times.

 

@Brandt is right. Log into your account and choose a different flight at no charge, @bluesdude

 

Nothing for me has changed yet.
Did they offer a reason? Are they taking certain aircraft out of service?

 

I think it may be due to Boeing delays in delivering 737s.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/04/02/boeing-delayed-deliveries-united-airlines/

 

My may 19th non stop out of ORD to LAS is still good to go

 

They have done stuff like that to me several times.

 

pretty routine stuff
you can easily change the flight. hopefully the schedule has a flight to your liking

 

We are avid flyers of SW so we know about changing flights. Thank you though for the heads up. I have already changed one flight. I will leave the other alone for now. I guess my point was that it seems like this may be more common at this current time seeing as my sons was changed at the same time out of a completely different airport. I just wasn't sure if this was wide spread or not. No reason was given for the change but @ReTriggerMe, I remember reading that article a few days ago. I guess I meant this as more of a PSA.

 

I had a May flight changed but only by 10 minutes. However, they still let me change the flight if I wanted. Had there been a better time available that was originally more expensive, I would have jumped on it!

 

Advance schedule changes are pretty common, I've found that the schedule isn't really 'fixed' until a month or two out. They push changes out in big batches across the entire airline's schedule so you and your son were probably just in the same batch. I agree it's annoying when you chose the airline for a specific timing or connection and then they switch it to something way less convenient. Delta and AA have both done this to me recently.

 

Yup. It is extremely annoying. And it turned out to be very inconvenient for one leg of the trip.

 

So, SWA is the only airline that flies from my home city to LAS direct. Every other airline has a layover.....So, I have historically flown SWA direct for my 3-4 trips a year. Over the last 2 years, the delays (delays have gotten ridiculous), excessive changes, cancellations, and even one re-routing while in the air and landing in Phoenix broke the dam - had to rent a car and drive in to LAS, but that's a whole other story. With that, no, you are not alone at all. In fact, it's become so bad for my buddy and I over the last 2 years (like 7-8 trips), that we decided to deal with one layover stop from another airline and have finally dumped SWA to get more stability in our plans.

 

Southwest changed my June LAS to CLE flight just today so I arrive 45 minutes later. I can’t beat evening rush hour now. I doubt I can do better without leaving Vegas at 5AM and that’s rough on my soul.

 

Thanks for the heads up! I hadn’t looked at our June flights in a week. Yep our flight time for our return trip from LV has changed and is leaving 45 minutes earlier. So now it’s either leave earlier and miss brunch at Border Grill or move to a flight that gets us home at probably midnight. I’m not liking either option. I just wish SWA would notify fliers when there is a change like they used to do.

 

This has happened to me several times in the last four or five months, both with Southwest and Delta. If you find a better flight they let you change it with no penalties. That's what I had to do.

 

They do notify you. I got an email for each change. You may have to check mark something in your SW profile to get the notifications. I did not mention in my OP that on both of those days SW out of ORD only has one nonstop flight to LAS. That is what makes this so annoying!

 

Thanks, but MDW is not very convenient for us to get to. There is no easy route and I also checked and the prices seemed outrageous for MDW.

 

these changes are unsettling when they disadvantage us.

But I must admit, there are times I was scheduled on a flight due to lowest fare, and the change allowed me to grab a higher fare more convenient flight. I was even able to extend trip duration once or twice. Keeping in mind that I fly out of Oakland and there are 9 or 10 nonstops every day, and 15-20 more flights with one stop in Southern CA. i.e., its easier for me to cope

 

Most airlines book whats called a placeholder schedule until 60-120 days before they fly. Cranky flyer got mad at the media doing one of those "Airline cuts flights by 30000!!!" headlines and did a breakdown back in 2022: https://crankyflier.com/2022/08/18/contrary-to-popular-belief-american-did-not-slash-its-planned-november-flying/

I don't think Southwest is quite as bad because they don't publish schedules as far out, but I usually take the view that times aren't usually solidified until you're less than 2 months out.