I fly to Nashville every month, sometimes more. There has typically been a direct Southwest flight every morning for years. Sometimes it leaves at 7am, sometimes 630, for a brief heavenly time it left at 830. I always thought it was the perfect time to get you there for the majority of the work day, since it’s about a two hour flight. It was always pretty full, so I assumed that it would be here forever.
Well, when I went to book my flight for this month, the time had changed from departing at 7:30 and arriving at 9:30am to departing at 11:30 and arriving at 1:30pm. 1:30pm! Who, exactly, is that flight designed for? I wouldn’t be able to get to the office until 2:30 at the earliest, which leaves me 2.5 hours of the workday. So my options are to come in the night before (which I HATE doing since I really only need to be there for five or six hours) or take an American flight through Dallas that leaves at 6am and arrives at noon. Awesome.
The last time Southwest changed this flight they at least had an option that left at 6am, stopped in Houston, and got me there at 9:30. But even that one is gone. WTF??? Okay, ending my rant now.
Readers, have you ever had a flight you took regularly change times? What did you do as a result?
Who goes to Nashville for work 😉
Flying out of Austin?
@Don yes indeed. Guess you are also familiar with this flight?
If it’s aus-bna as don suggested, on the random date I checked delta or American can get you there by 10 or so.
I fly up to the Bay area from SoCal about twice a month (Ontario, CA is my home airport), and although I myself never had this problem since ONT is a commuter airport up to the Bay area during the work week, a coworker whose home airport is SNA (noise restrictions in the AM so no takeoffs before 7 am) has to drive to ONT (45 miles in SoCal traffic) every once in awhile if we have an earlier than usual meeting, as she refuses to go the night before. Another option for us is LAX (though I’d rather drive the 7 hours to the Bay area than deal with LAX for a day trip).
If I know all of my dates ahead of time, I usually make it a habit once a week to check on Google Flights for my dates. It’s a half hour of work, but it gives me a good idea of what’s coming and going, and how much will have to be appropriated for it. Its better than doing an overnight trip. But can be annoying for points collecting.
Check again. I see a 6:20 that gets into Nashville at 10. That is on SW
Wendy
I now see the AA 6am arriving at 10. That is way better than I thought (although still not awesome). The SW 6:20-10 is not showing up. Wonder if it’s sold out for my day? Anyway. Thanks everyone for your help!
I feel your pain. I fly DFW to RIC every week. AA changes times on my all the time. For 6 weeks in the fall they even dropped one of 3 flights per day! I actually had to take a connecting flt. Horrors. I am spoiled
This happened to me with my AUS-HOU flights. For years, there was a 620 flight sometimes as late as 645. Last time I needed to fly it was 8:30 and then the latest time out of Houston was 5:30. So, I would have gotten to work at 10 and then needed to leave for the airport by 4pm. To me it seems Southwest is not gearing toward the business traveler.
In the end, I flew 20 minutes earlier on United and was able to be at the office by 8am and left at 5:30. It was a long day but at least I was able to get all my work done without an overnight.