Like many others, my family got caught up in all the Southwest cancellations for the holidays of 2022. I just wanted to get our story down for and I might be able to spin this into a holiday comedy movie or something.

Keeping Us Apart

Before we get to this year’s story, I need to go back in time. My son was born during the middle of a global pandemic. He was born at the end of 2020 when we didn’t grasp what the virus could do or how to survive it other than to buckle down inside. When we brought him home, he met my wife’s parents but not the rest of his family. We didn’t spend Christmas with extended family. We just stayed home.

Eventually, once things settled down a little, my parents and sister met him. Unfortunately, my brother and his kids, who are the closest in age to my son, wouldn’t get to travel because of the cost and risk. We hoped that they would meet at Christmas in 2021.

That Christmas, we planned to all stay with my parents in Colorado. My family had an easy trip to Colorado, flying Southwest Airlines. Once there, we found out that my nephews’ had tested positive for COVID the day before they were supposed to leave. The nephews had just played at that friend’s house just days before. So they delayed their flight to Colorado to see what would happen.

Then another of their friends tested positive.

They didn’t want to risk getting my son or my parents sick, so they canceled their trip. We still tried to have a good time, but I was sad that my son hadn’t gotten to meet his cousins.

We had a few other chances to meet up in 2022, but the timing never worked.

So that put us into holiday 2022, everyone stayed healthy, and we were all ready to meet in Colorado again.

The Winter Storm

Whenever I get to see my parents, it feels like something apocalyptic always happens. The first time they came to meet my son, we had the Texas freeze and power outage. My parents got stuck with us for about a week extra that time.

We went to Colorado during the summer to visit my parents and sister, and wildfires broke out. We couldn’t even leave the house one day because of the smoke outside.

The next time my parents visited us, a bomb threat got called into the school I work at. I had planned to meet them for lunch but got stuck outside monitoring kids for hours instead.

This year, the country got hit by an arctic blast. The bomb cyclone hit a few days before we were supposed to leave, so we thought we would be fine. Little did we know what would come.

I covered up our outdoor plants before the freeze came that Friday. When I started to work in the yard, it was a balmy sixty degrees in Houston. By the time I finished, the temperature had dropped to thirty-five degrees. Meanwhile, my parent’s house in Colorado was in the negative double-digits. I figured things would be bad at the airport, but I had no idea what awaited us and the rest of the country.

My mother-in-law flew out for her trip on Friday, and although she was going in the opposite direction, she still got caught up in all the airline delays. Her flight got delayed by a couple of hours, but she made it to her destination, giving me hope that we would make it.

The Southwest Implosion

While the temperature dropped the night before, Christmas Eve didn’t feel nearly as cold as the evening before. Colorado had moved the temperature gauge back to the positive side. I anticipated delays but figured we would make it. We had our personal family Christmas that morning. My son opened all his presents from Santa. We checked our flight status and saw, to our surprise, that our flight was on-time.

We hadn’t heard of the mass Southwest cancellations yet.

We loaded up the car with all our bags and headed to Hobby Airport, the Houston hub for Southwest Airlines. As we arrived, everything still said we were on time. We headed to check in a saw a long line wrapped around the building and began to panic. We soon discovered that the people in the line needed to talk to an agent to reschedule a canceled flight. We got shuffled to another line, and in a matter of minutes, we got checked in and checked our bags.

The line through security shocked us next. No one stood in line. We made it through in record time and now had a couple of hours to kill with a two-year-old in tow. We headed to the playground to let our son burn off some energy. Thank you, Hobby, for a space for kids to burn off that energy! Every airport should build something similar. As he played, I messed around on my iPhone before getting a notification that our flight had been delayed.

With the extra time, we decided to grab some lunch and play on the playground for a while. While we ate, our flight got canceled.

We went to the first agent we could find to see our options, but the lines inside the terminal had already grown. So many flights had been canceled, and people were looking for ways to get out. The implosion had started. Checking through social media, we saw everyone across the country found themselves in a similar spot. Flights were canceled one after the other, even in places that the winter freeze hadn’t heavily impacted.

Road to Recovery

We were offered the option for two of us to fly to Austin, which would then travel to Denver. That meant one of us would be left behind, and the other two would risk getting stuck in Austin. Neither of those things sounded like a good idea. Flights were getting canceled left and right. I didn’t want one of us stuck in Austin with a two-year-old. So we said “No,” and asked about other options. The gate agent said the best bet would be to call the main number to get a new ticket.

Later that night, we would see the Houston flight made it to Austin and then got canceled. So we would have been stuck after all.

It felt like a bad novella.

Unlike many of the flyers, we got lucky to get stuck at Hobby airport. The crews unloaded all the checked luggage from all the southwest cancellations back onto the baggage claims. It felt almost like a post-apocalyptic setting walking into baggage claim. I have never seen so many bags sitting out or on the conveyer belt.

All the Southwest employees grabbed bags off the belts and put them on the ground to make room on the belt for more bags. People wandered up and down, looking at the rows of left luggage or bags left on the conveyor.

No one seemed to know where anything was coming from or going. Finally, someone managed to give directions to the people looking for bags. Flyers asked workers where bags were and which baggage claim to go to. The workers didn’t know all the answers, but they tried their best.

I never saw anyone yelling or berating anyone else, but I’m sure the crew at Hobby worked their butts off trying to get everyone taken care of. I know they would have much rather spent their holiday at home with their family, but they did the best they could.

After about five hours after entering the Airport, we had all our luggage and left. Of course, I had prepaid over a hundred dollars for parking for the week, which hasn’t been refunded yet, but at least we had our stuff and could go home. Many people, through the next few days, would be stuck in airports all over the world.

Our first thought out the door had us driving the sixteen-hour trip to Colorado, but my family didn’t want us on the road with the weather the way it was. We didn’t have anything else to do, so we went home for the night.

The Onslaught of Southwest Cancelations

When we got home, we turned to Twitter and the news to see what was happening. There had been rumors of the crews in Denver getting messages from their managers that they couldn’t call in sick unless they had a physical note from a physical doctor’s office. Because of the lack of respect, the crew walked, and the Southwest couldn’t replace them.

I watched as people posted about waiting in lines for hours trying to get a flight rescheduled to get home or to find out where their bags were. The next morning, Christmas day, people had been stranded in airports across the country, and Southwest continued to cancel flights. No one knew when they would get to celebrate their holiday or if they would ever get home.

We tried to call Southwest when we got home from the Airport. If the call connected, we would be placed on hold, where we would wait for hours before getting disconnected, or the line would just shut down. By 9 P.M., we saw that Southwest had shut down the phone lines (which might not have been true, that’s just what we saw). My wife continued to try to call. She wanted to get us a flight to see my family.

We both wanted to get all the boys together for the first time.

So she sat on hold for five and a half hours. Finally, someone connected and tried to get us on a plane that night, but the tickets were taken before she could complete the transaction. Luckily, she found us a flight a couple of days later, but it had a connection. It would be tough with a toddler, but we could try.

But then, more and more cancelations came. Southwest seemed to be the only airline canceling. Hardly any of the other airlines we having as much trouble as Southwest. Rumors started to swirl about what was happening, from employees walking out to planes being broken. We watched the status of flights like a hawk. We wanted to see if anyone actually made it on a plane. My hopes of seeing my family diminished with every cancelation until it was almost nothing.

Then, I talked to my parents again. The weather had improved, and my mom admitted she regretted telling us not to drive. So, the day after Christmas, we loaded up my car with the bags we hadn’t unpacked yet and started off on a sixteen-hour road trip to Colorado with a toddler and a pregnant mama.

Holiday 2022 Can Start

My wife and I loved flying Southwest. We have their credit cards (sign up here to score us both some points). My wife even achieved a Companion pass. I honestly hope that Southwest survives and learns from this moment. I hope they improve their systems and get all their ducks in a row.

I also want to say that the crew at Hobby Airport did a fantastic job in a terrible situation. As we would later find out, things are never what they seem. I wish the men in charge at Southwest had made a statement sooner. Of course, in the days ahead, we would be told that the problem was the antiquated system Southwest used to track where its employees were. I’m sure that was partially true, but I think there is more unsaid.

I want to say that Holiday 2022 ended here with everything fine, but there’s more story to tell. Next week, come back to hear about our road trip and some of the tips we learned on the way.