Beside all the other anguish Southwest Airlines customers are going through this week, another group is watching the airline's schedule carefully.
Thousands of TCU fans have tickets for Saturday's Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix where the Frogs play Michigan in one of the College Football Playoff semi-finals.
Southwest has eight daily flights from Dallas Love Field to Phoenix and many fans planned to fly out today. But Southwest has already canceled 2,600 flights today, many of them out of Dallas.
It's about a 2.5 hour flight from Love Field to Phoenix but it takes at least 15 hours to drive. And yet, that's the option many TCU fans are contemplating because it looks like Southwest's schedule out of Love Field may not be untangled in time to make it for Saturday's game.
Other fans are turning to more creative ways to get to Phoenix for the game.
Sarah Dreier is a TCU graduate who currently lives in Columbia, Missouri. She was all set to fly from Kansas City to Phoenix Wednesday night to see her Horned Frogs play for a spot in the National Championship Game, until she found out that her Southwest flight was cancelled.
Booking another flight was untenable.
"Pretty much any flight to anywhere on the west coast was going to be another $1,000 for a one-way ticket, if I could get one," Dreier tells KRLD news.
That meant Dreier had to turn to alternatives.
"I looked at driving first," Dreier says. "And I thought, 20 hours by myself is probably not the best plan. And then I thought, well, maybe I can take the train."
And that's exactly what she's doing. She booked one of the two remaining seats on an Amtrak route from Chicago to Los Angeles; she'll board in Kansas City.
"The furthest west I could go with Albuquerque, because beyond that was booked," says Dreier. "So I am renting a car in Albuquerque and driving the six and a half hours from Albuquerque to Phoenix after spending 16-plus hours on the train."
If all goes according to plan, Dreier plans on arriving in Phoenix by 11:00 Thursday night.
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