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Comment by cdrini | Hacker News Reader

> [Elimination of] Automatic Refunds for Cancellations

Airline cancellations. Seeing as they're talking about making a change, I assume it's airline cancellations, since no airline will currently refund you for a passenger cancellation.

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Southwest used to for all tickets, for free.

They’re eliminating it because the new CEO is trying to speed-run them out of business.

Even though I’ve flown a dozen or more airlines in my life, I actually felt true loyalty towards Southwest because of their amazing no fee policies. And it was worth playing the “check in quickly cuz there’s no assigned seats” game for all the other benefits. And we’ve flown so many flights as a family due to that. It removed all the stress from the ticket purchasing process.

This CEO is a freaking idiot. Is this an excel jockey/MBA a-hole like the kind that ran Boeing and Intel into the ground?

What’s wrong with the board that voted this idiot in?

An activist investor, Elliot, acquired a significant stake in the company and organized a shareholder revolt about Southwest's margins. Paraphrasing their presentation on the issue [0]:

    Management Has Historically Ruled Out Industry-Standard Commercial Initiatives [like assigned seating, different seat classes, and checked bag fees]

The plan is to make SWA as similar as possible to other airlines to get their numbers to the same place, increasing the value of already owned shares. They don't care if it destroys SWA's customer base because they'll have sold off their stake by then.

[0] https://beatofhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Stronger...

Amazing. Absolute douchebag investors that ruin everything.

I looked up the difference in numbers.

They could have added something like $30-50 to each ticket, blamed inflation, and been done. They used to be the premium choice vs airlines like united, which charge way more for intentionally separate coach seats with no legroom or luggage allowances.

I see they offer free cancellations and refunds for their two top-tier tickets, but can't find a reference for them offering it for all tickets. Do you have a link?

https://mobile.southwest.com/fare-information/

https://support.southwest.com/helpcenter/s/article/policy-ch...

Before, you could cancel within 24 hours of boarding and get your full amount as at least a credit without any extra fee for any ticket class. That credit had no expiration. Now, there's a fee and expiration for this credit.

They want to benefit from passengers who don’t know their rights, because they won’t request a refund.

Similar things happened to family members multiple times where their initial flight (overseas) was delayed by 6 hours, they had many issues, and nobody provided information about their rights. I told them about what to ask for and voila, $1100 refund.

If the flight is delayed by 3 hours, you will get a refund if you cancel. This is great if the delay is long and there is a flight on a competing airline that would let you get out sooner.

Delta at least supplies a 24 hour grace period to cancel in case one made a mistake. I noticed they don't even charge cards until after this period

I think this one is required federally because every US airline allows this that I’ve flown.

It is a legal requirement.

Some will, you just have to pay an extra fee when you buy the ticket. It is ridiculous.

It will typically be in the form of a credit but United, for example, does allow cancellations (not sure how far in advance) for no charge.

I think charging a fee for passenger cancellation insurance is reasonable; the airline takes on a decent amount of risk if a consumer can cancel at any time.

I don’t think anybody’s said so far that it has to be at any time. Up to X number of days out, like most hotels, I think is perfectly reasonable.

That would be reasonable, but I think I could take it or leave it. Planes fill up more than hotels would be my guess, so they'd need a buffer window of like a month? At which point the difference between having and not having cancellation protection seems negligible to me.

I think we’re making a lot of assumptions here. For all we know one to two weeks could make a lot of sense.

I understand airlines are very feast or famine and often operate on very thin margins, but at this point I’m willing to pay a little more for the experience to not be so categorically and consistently miserable

I think for me my main gripe with air travel is how hard it is to predict the price and how high the prices are. It takes me like a day of research to book a flight due to how careful I have to be to confirm what luggage I'm allowed/etc. And it's incredibly easy for me to get burned because aggregator sites like Google flights can't tell you eg how much a carry-on would cost, so I have to try to determine if the cheaper flight is _actually_ cheaper, etc etc. And I'm tired of having family have to pay crazy hundred dollar + fees for an extra carry on because the eco light ticket (although the ticket just says eco on it) doesn't actually include a personal item, that's only part of the eco ticket, and since you're at the counter that's going to be $100 fee for you to carry a purse onto the plane. -_- Shout out Condor.

Otherwise I find everything ok. The flights are fine -- packed but it is what it is there's high demand. I could do with/without the food if it reduced the price, I can pack my own. But otherwise I find them fine.

What makes air travel miserable for you?

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