A legally blind college student shared her recent travel nightmare experience on Southwest Airlines during which a representative suggested she sleep on the airport floor after getting stranded in Baltimore.
TikToker Maddie—a.k.a @mylilmad—is a 19-year-old who flies on an average of 12-14 Southwest flights per year, regularly commuting between college in Western Massachusetts and her home in Dallas, Texas.
Maddie noted that she is legally blind, a white cane user, and has "meet and assist" and pre-board status with Southwest and has boarding passes stamped, identifying her as a "blind" passenger.
She also said she has never had a bad experience with Southwest prior to her recent situation in which she was stuck in Tampa, Florida, while trying to get from Dallas to Hartford, Connecticut, to get back to school after spring break.
The flight was canceled due to tornado warnings, which the TikToker said she understood and that it was not the main issue.
Maddie said Southwest canceled or delayed the flights, updating her with text messages on her flight status, eventually delaying her layover flight to Baltimore even further to 10 p.m.
"Flights kept getting pushed and getting canceled, it was a mess," she said.
@mylilmad @Southwest Airlines #southwest
Gate agents in Tampa offered to compensate her for a hotel and dinner, under the condition they were able to find someplace for her to stay for the inconvenience.
When Maddie boarded the plane from Tampa headed for Baltimore, she was instructed to inform the flight attendants that the connecting flight to Hartford was going to depart 10 minutes after she landed.
She informed them that because she was listed as a Southwest "priority passenger" due to her blindness, the delays and cancellations, and her "meet and assist" status, the flight would be held for her.
"The response I got from the flight attendant was the first moment I ever had with a Southwest flight attendant where I felt uncomfortable," she said.
Maddie claimed that the Southwest staff member she spoke to told her that she "wasn't special," that it didn't matter that she had a connecting flight to get to because all the other passengers also had layovers and other places to get to.
"Basically, I'm not important, it didn't matter."
@mylilmad/TikTok
Another flight attendant stepped in and confirmed Maddie was legally blind and that they would hold the flight for her, and it ended in the previous attendant informing the other passengers about Maddie's situation and emphasizing that everyone had places to get to and those who weren't wiling to run from the plane to get to the next plane would miss their connecting flights.
"I ended up crying for that entire flight from Tampa to Baltimore, and I just did not have a good time."
@mylilmad/TikTok
Her flight landed an hour later than the scheduled arrival time, and at that point, Maddie expected the connecting plane would be gone.
Surprisingly, the plane was still there, but Maddie didn't expect to board the flight on time given the late arrival of her outbound flight.
While a good Samaritan who sat next to her on the flight and was an A-list Southwest member explained to the gate agents about her ordeal and if there were any other flights to Hartford, Maddie was told the next one wasn't until 9:30 a.m. the next day and that she wasn't going to be compensated due to weather.
@mylilmad/TikTok
A supervisor who came over repeated the same thing, explaining that because of the flight cancellations and delays due to bad weather, there would be no compensation, nor would she be put up in a hotel.
When the fellow passenger helping her asked the agent what Maddie was expected to do under the inconvenient circumstances, the agent said Maddie could sleep on the floor because all the passengers were doing it.
"I'm expecting her to sleep on the floor," the agent repeated.
@mylilmad/TikTok
@mylilmad/TikTok
Adding to the nightmare, Maddie was told her luggage got lost in the shuffle amidst the flight cancellations.
With no other alternative, she called her father, who was able to book a hotel for her near the airport where she was recording her TikTok video.
When she asked the agent where her luggage with all her essentials—including toiletries and medications—was, she was told it made it to Hartford.
"How did my bag get to Hartford and I didn't?" she remarked, bewildered.
Still without answers, Maddie remained without her personal belongings. She couldn't even order food from Uber Eats, given it was midnight and her location was inaccessible.
@mylilmad/TikTok
@mylilmad/TikTok
@mylilmad/TikTok
@mylilmad/TikTok
Defeated, Maddie continued:
"My current issue with Southwest is the hostility I received from that flight attendant and the customer service agent."
"I understand that the customer service agent was saying what he was told, but he was not saying it in a polite way."
"Part of my issue was that in Tampa, I was told that I would be taken care of no matter what and that I would be compensated, and then suddenly I get to Baltimore and I was not taken care of at all."
@mylilmad/TikTok
@mylilmad/TikTok
Maddie emphasized that her gripe had nothing to do with the flight cancellations or the delays, as those are common setbacks for safety.
"My problem was how I was treated after the delays and cancellations, and that I was abandoned," she said.
Maddie wound up traveling for 30 hours on five planes, one of which was her canceled flight.
Fortunately, there was good news.
In a follow-up video, Maddie said that someone at Southwest saw her TikTok clip, prompting an executive board member named Logan to personally call to apologize for her ordeal.
She wound up getting compensated for the negative experience.
But it shouldn't have taken a viral TikTok for Southwest to do the right thing in the first place.
@arianagrande/Instagram
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social