We are at about the ten month mark for when the 737 MAX 8 aircrafts were pulled out of the sky and they are still causing massive scheduling disruptions. On the domestic front, this is affecting American, United and Southwest. Out of the three airlines, however, Southwest has been hit the hardest due to the sheer number of these aircrafts in their fleet. Although Southwest still has these aircrafts in their schedule, they are being proactive in canceling flights and allowing customers to change (for no fee), little by little. Just this morning, Southwest moved forward with taking these routes off the schedule through June 6, 2020.
Note: You might find that some of your flights you have booked up through this date are still scheduled on the 737 MAX 8 aircrafts. I suspect those flights will be canceled within the next few days once they get their system fully up to date.
Is Your Flight Affected?
If you have any flights booked between April 14 and Jun 6, 2020 there is a chance you received an email from Southwest:
Or, you can always log into your Southwest account and double check on your upcoming flight. Just check on “Change flight” and if a notification pops up, you know that your flight has been affected.
If you are impacted, you have two options:
- The opportunity to switch to another Southwest flight within 14 days from their scheduled flight (either 14 days beforehand or 14 days afterwards). Customers will not have to pay a fare difference, there just has to be a seat available
- Cancel your reservation.
Keep in mind that you can always change to nearby airports as well if that schedule works better for you. When you change your flight, the group of airports will be listed. For example, I have a flight departing from Boston and I am allowed to fly out of Providence or Manchester instead, if I prefer.
Related: Ultimate Guide to Changing and Canceling a Southwest Flight
To simply change your flight online, you must do so within the next few days. Otherwise, you’ll need to call Southwest directly (or there is a good change they will call you) and make the change. Note:Â You can make the change over the phone (or via Twitter) with them up until the day the flight departs.
Overall…
While it is unfortunate to see a flight canceled or changed months out in advance, this is giving customers enough notice to rebook their flights on Southwest or another airline if needed. As of now, there is truly no telling to when the 737 MAX 8 aircrafts will be back in the sky.
Were you affected by this change?
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I got lucky this time: SW changed my departure time for an August flight from 6:35 AM (too early!) to 8:55 AM (nice!).
I’m affected ugh:( Flying out of Phoenix in August and do not want a 5 hr layover if it’s in Vegas!
I’ve been affected twice, but nothing I can’t handle. I appreciate them being proactive (two months out).
How can I tell if my flight is on a MAX?
Three changes already, but they are proactive so appreciate that!
Is this ever going to end ? Maybe Boeing should have AB private label planes for them
Southwest has continuing delusion Boeing will fix this any day now, and executives
who were invested in that purchase decision who cannot admit it was a bad choice.
Dump TurkeyMAX, take the loss one quarter and likely get tax writeoff and subsidy.
Lease some aircraft to fill the gap, start process on buying something else.
My big beef with Southwest over this issue is that, invariably, their computer algorithms give me the worst possible flight changes when much more logical, convenient choices are available. One suggested switch to a BUR-LGA flight even had a four hour plus layover – an itinerary that you could not book on your own even if you wanted to! Today they changed my nonstop ISP-FLL flight in December to a one-stop flight, even though there was a new nonstop with wide-open availability leaving less than an hour earlier than my original flight. I’m expecting more of the same issues in a few weeks, as an agent said I should not be surprised if changes are made to my scheduled January flights.
Do you think that Southwest will offer reduced prices to attract passengers when the 737MAX goes back into service since some passengers will not trust flying on a 737MAX?
@NMW – I am not sure?
Deals We Like is now officially SNN. Southwest News Network. Isn’t there any other news out there???
I fly Southwest every week since March 2019 and have never had an issue.
Southwest called me a couple days ago. Had a Caribbean flight booked for me and my wife at the end of February. We booked with points and our companion
Pass. Our flight there was no longer available out of MKE. One of their offers was to book us on another another airline with a similar flight. We found one on Delta that will get us to our destination 2 hours sooner. It cost them $735 for the flight we booked with points and we’ll get Delta points for flying as they took our frequent flyers number. This is why we love SW.
FYI, the plural of “aircraft” is just “aircraft”, not “aircrafts”.