Southwest Airlines Passenger Upset After “Wings Over Houston” Rehearsals Disrupt Flight

The Wings Over Houston airshow will be held at Ellington Field on October 26th and 27th. However, rehearsals for the show were held on Thursday, October 24th, disrupting flights heading into Hobby Airport.

Unhappy passengers

Passengers aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 2832 to Houston Hobby Airport (HOU) from Hollywood Burbank Airport (BUR) on Thursday afternoon were baffled after their pilot announced that the flight would be diverting to San Antonio International Airport (SAT).

Understandably, passengers onboard the aircraft were unhappy as they weren’t informed of the Diversion until they were just minutes away from landing and were completely caught off guard.

In a statement to ABC13, Jeffrey Rosenberg, a passenger on the diverted flight, said:

“I thought they were joking or something very serious was going on. I just couldn’t believe it. It just seemed really weird. We were getting ready to land, so there was sort of that lack of communication and planning.”

The rehearsal for the airshow held at Ellington Field Airport (EFD), which is located 10 miles away from HOU, forced the flight to divert. Hobby Airport said that the flight was attempting to land while the US Navy Blue Angels were practicing. In general, when either the Blue Angles or Air Force Thunderbirds, airspace restrictions are in effect to prevent other traffic from interfering.

Hobby Airport Authorities explained the issue at the airport and apologized for the inconvenience:

“Normally, in years past, even with the Blue Angels or the US Air Force Thunderbirds rehearsing, planes can still land at Hobby. But one of the runways at HOU is under construction… which means flights must come in and out of another runway… which is in the flight path of that airspace that was temporarily restricted while the Blue Angels did their thing.

Please let Mr. Rosenberg we understand and appreciate his frustration, however the activity is happening around Hobby Airport, and we must follow FAA restrictions. Our sincere hope is he can make it back to Houston safe and sound.”

It appears that Southwest Airlines had not made provisions for its flights landing during the airspace restriction. The airline could also have been unaware of the practice schedule. Either way, passengers weren’t notified ahead of time.

Multiple flights disrupted

Southwest Flight 2832 wasn’t the only flight that faced disruptions. It appears that four Southwest flights bound for HOU were diverted.

In a telling statement to ABC13, Southwest said:

“We have around 160 Thursday and Friday flights at Houston Hobby and a grand total of four were diverted yesterday, all of which later arrived. Considering that’s less than .3% of our daily operation there, it’s not something that warrants a schedule adjustment… which would likely mean canceling flights.

We apologize to the Customers affected for their inconvenience with the diversion, but our operational teams wouldn’t want to make an unnecessary decision that could result in Customers not reaching their destination by end of day.

For today/this weekend, our teams will continue tactically managing these brief disruptions.”

Simple Flying has asked the airline why provisions were not made for the aircraft coming into land during the rehearsal and, most importantly, why the passengers weren’t informed beforehand.