‘Emotionally, it’s been insane.’ Delays and canceled flights vex RDU travelers.
Hannah Vara had booked Southwest Airlines flights to Oklahoma City leaving Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Sunday morning, just in time to spend Christmas dinner with her husband’s family.
But after getting delayed and rebooked three times, they’d given up on flying.
On Tuesday Vara and her family, including children ages 3 and 18 months, were in a rental car driving 20 hours to reach their destination that evening.
“The airline didn’t have flights until Jan. 1,” the 32-year-old Raleigh resident told The News & Observer by phone. “We got a Hertz rental from the airport this morning. We’re really crunched for time, and we didn’t want to take any chances.”
Vara is one of thousands of travelers at RDU affected by widespread flight delays and cancellations after a winter storm wreaked havoc over the holiday weekend.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there were close to 50 flight delays and cancellations at RDU, including all 34 Southwest Airlines flights scheduled to arrive or depart from the airport.
Though she expects to see a full refund, Vara said: “Emotionally, it’s been insane. If [Southwest] had been considerate and told us to make other plans, we could have left on Saturday night.”
USDOT to review airline performance
With consecutive days of extreme winter weather across its network, Southwest said “continuing challenges are impacting our customers and employees in a significant way.”
It was repositioning crews to urgently address the “wide-scale disruption,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) said it was concerned by Southwest’s “unacceptable” rate of cancellations and delays, and lack of prompt customer service.
“The Department will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan,” it tweeted on Monday night.
Travelers whose flights are canceled are entitled to a refund, including for non-refundable tickets and fees paid for bags and seat assignments, according to USDOT.
RDU is urging people to check flight before heading to the airport. People can also check flight statuses on RDU’s website at rdu.com/airline-information/flight-status.
More than half a million people will be traveling in and out of RDU from Saturday, Dec. 17 through Tuesday, Jan. 3, one of the busiest travel stretches of the year, the airport stated.
This story was originally published December 27, 2022 at 10:11 AM.
