Southwest Airlines: most-reported complaints
Automated analysis of 110 public Trustpilot reviews published 2026-07-02 to 2026-09-26. TrustScore 1.5 from 973 total reviews — see the Trustpilot page. Quick answer: is Southwest Airlines legit? Issues below reflect what reviewers reported, not findings of wrongdoing.
Reviewers most often report poor core service, citing 53 instances of issues such as flight cancellations during clear weather. Other frequent complaints include unhelpful support, with 17 reports regarding delays and lack of explanations, and general dissatisfaction labeled as 'other' in 20 cases. A smaller number of reviewers, totaling 7, reported overcharging, specifically noting significant price increases for renewals.
Trustpilot lists this business as no longer collecting reviews. New reviews are not currently being gathered for its profile. See the Trustpilot page for the current status.
The company has not claimed its Trustpilot profile. We last checked this profile on 2026-09-27 and found 4 new reviews. These are facts Trustpilot publishes about the profile, as of our last harvest.
Forum footprint: 9 MoneySavingExpert forum discussions mention this company (browse). Roughly 0 of the top, relevance-sorted search results were posted in the last 90 days — an approximate figure by construction, not a true recency count. Recent thread titles: “Southwest Airlines Promo Code”, “Southwest Airlines grounds jets over mid-air hole scare”, “A good site for Lo cost interna USA flights”.
TrustScore over time
1.6 → 1.5 across 5 census measurements since 2026-09-15. Our own record, independent of Trustpilot’s display.
Reply behaviour over time
Solid: % of negative reviews replied to. Dashed: typical days to reply. Both as reported on this company’s Trustpilot profile, recorded whenever our census re-checked it and a figure had changed — the gaps between points are not equal: 2026-09-15 (0%, 0.0d) · 2026-09-18 (0%, 0.0d) · 2026-09-21 (0%, 0.0d) · 2026-09-24 (0%, 0.0d) · 2026-09-27 (0%, 0.0d).
Severity: 21% of this company’s 100 graded complaints were classified as severe (money lost, an essential service cut off, or a problem unresolved for months). See the harm index.
Reviewers here waited a median of 1.2 days between the experience and publishing their negative review (103 reviews record both dates).
What their policy promises
complaint process: all notices that comply
“We will review and address all notices that comply with the requirements above.”
complaint process: material may be reinstated
“If we do not receive such notification, the material may be reinstated.”
Quoted verbatim from the company’s own published policy (source page); complaint counts are census classifications. As of 2026-09-15.
Policy-page monitoring
We monitor this company’s published policy page for changes. No changes have been detected since we started watching on 2026-09-21.
Automated change detection on the company’s own published policy page — a record of when the page changed, not a judgement on what changed.
Sector benchmark: poor core service makes up 53% of this company’s complaints vs a 12% median across 29 ranked companies in its sector.
Review velocity: 291 of this company’s 973 Trustpilot reviews (30%) were written in the last 12 months.
What are the most common complaints about Southwest Airlines?
Poor core service
53 reports · 53% of complaintsfalling“They canceled my son’s flight and deemed it weather related when in fact there was no bad weather”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Engine caught on fire, fixed that got back in the air... 10 minutes in the airfkight gets diverted”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“refuse to give me a hotel voucher or meal voucher.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Other
20 reports · 20% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“I used to rave about how good the airline was to others considering using it.”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“we were forced to check in our carry on even after we requested that we scheduled a uber ride ahead of time.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“the flight credit could only be used by him, not by the person who actually paid for the ticket”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Support unhelpful
17 reports · 17% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“Stuck going and coming. As she was heading back to college a delay with no explanation for connecting flight”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“after our flight being delayed 4 times, we arrived a day later”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“You cannot use chat to contact them. Have you ever heard of a major airline company without chat customer service?”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Overcharging
7 reports · 7% of complaintsrising since 2026-09“the price went up for renewal It started at $99 and the last time it went up to $229.”
2 readers marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“they still wouldn’t change seats for me just before boarding unless I paid the premium.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“I was then notified that Southwest changed my seat and would be issuing me a refund for the seat selection.”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
Billing errors
6 reports · 6% of complaintssteady“Charged me twice for one flight costing me an extra 350 dollars”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“multiple pending charges for the attempted upgrades, yet I still have no upgraded seats”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“they don’t release the funds that they put on hold so now basically until they decide to release your hold you’ve paid for two tickets”
Support unreachable
4 reports · 4% of complaintssteady“You cannot use chat to contact them. Have you ever heard of a major airline company without chat customer service?”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Twice they sent a password reset link, and twice it failed...gave me a message "Unable to Process Request."”
1 reader marked this review helpful on Trustpilot.
“Cannot get into SW website to get boarding pass”
Method: reviews are classified into a fixed complaint taxonomy by an automated reader; every category shown is backed by at least two verbatim quotes from distinct reviews. Trends are computed from dated review counts only. Negative reviews are deliberately over-sampled for evidence depth; headline percentages use an unbiased recent sample only. Report updated 2026-09-27.