I was scheduled to attend ASD’s San Antonio Show this weekend, but due to a category 5 hurricane (Rita) the show has been postponed. Postponing the show was the right move to make. There are hundreds of thousands of people evacuting the coast line areas of Texas right now for higher and safer ground. We witnessed just a few weeks ago, with Hurricane Katrina, the amount of devastation and chaos that natural disaster can wreak upon us. Every hotel in San Antonio is booked, and there is no question that the city of San Antonio will be donating its resources to the potential victims of Hurricane Rita.

Well, I just got off the phone with Southwest Airlines to cancel my flight and request a refund of the tickets that I had purchased. I first spoke with a representative in the refund department who told me that they were only refunding customers from Houston and Corpus Christi. After expalinging to him that Rita is a category 5, every hotel in San Antonio is being used by evacuees, and the city will be a resource for hurricane victims, he still refussed my refund and only offered me a credit. I demanded to speak with a supervisior. He put Bob on the phone for me. Bob is the supervisior of the refunds division. Bob told me that I’m under a contractual obligation to fly into SanAntonio. I told Bob that I too have many customers that are contractually obligated to advertise with me, but I make excpetions for my customers when they are faced with events out of their control. Bob also told me that Southwest has already lost millions of dollars from Katrina and they will probably lose millions from Rita. To sum it up, Bob refused a refund to me as well. Bob and Southwest expect me to fly into a city being used as a resource for evacuees. This is a shame.

Southwest should not be a proponent of travel into San Antonio at a time when it is more that obvious that the only people that need to be around that area are those that already live there, or those helping the thousands of people that are more than likely going to lose everything they have.

Southwest needs to recognize that they are contibuting to the chaos and devastion of a catastrophe and sacrificing humanity for the sake of a few dollars. Shame on them.

Jason