The bad headlines for Southwest Airlines (LUV) keep coming, as reports have surfaced of an incident involving a nine-hour delay of a recent flight that resulted in passengers vomiting and passing out.
Southwest flight 3094 was diverted from a Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Friday night ostensibly due to inclement weather conditions.
Don’t Miss: Virgin Atlantic Takes on a Huge Venture Fliers Will Love
William Thomas Cain/Getty Images
The plane originally departed from Baltimore for Raleigh-Durham, but sat grounded for 40 minutes with the engines running, burning fuel. The flight took off at 7:40 pm. At around 9pm, the weather worsened, and the jet’s altitude dropped as low as 1,350 feet, with one person saying the aircraft shook "like crazy."
The weather reportedly caused a great deal of turbulence, as reports have surfaced that several passengers began vomiting, and another had a panic attack and then passed out. The change in flight plan was made when the plane was at 1,350 feet, and it was redirected to the closed Myrtle Beach airport overnight.
A Cursed Travel Itinerary
From there, it seems that the passenger’s experience did not immediately improve, as they were held on the grounded flight for two hours before they were allowed inside the closed airport for nearly four hours.
“We couldn’t go anywhere because they wouldn’t give us our luggage,” said passenger Nicholas Reed. “One group of guys found a bar and went behind it and just started pouring themselves drinks — because there was no security.”
“We made the decision to safely divert Southwest flight 3094 (BWI – RDU) to MYR due to weather conditions at RDU,” said Southwest in a statement over the weekend. “We brought in another crew and aircraft to transport the passengers to their final destination as soon as we were able to safely do so.”
After 1:00 am, an empty plane from Baltimore arrived at the closed airport, and flew everyone to Raleigh. Passengers have reported that they did not receive any meal vouchers, and that all restaurants were closed.
Southwest's Troubles Continue
This is exactly the sort of bad news Southwest does not need right now, as it is still dealing with the fallout from its holiday meltdown (which many critics say was completely avoidable) as well as missing its deadline to refund affected customers.
For his part, Pete Buttigieg, the United States Secretary of Transportation, has been pressuring airlines to provide meal vouchers to any passenger that has to wait more than three hours, and that travelers that are stranded overnight should receive free lodging. At the moment, no federal law required airlines to take this action.
