Southwest App Not Working? Boarding Pass Fixes (2026)

We pulled the 500 most recent US Google Play reviews for the Southwest Airlines app on 1 August 2026, plus the current US App Store feed. After removing duplicates and one-line noise, 290 unique substantive 1-3 star reviews remained on Android and 17 on iOS. By rating on Android: 217 one-star, 46 two-star, 27 three-star. That is 75% one-star.

At that moment the app held 4.42 stars from 166,159 Google Play ratings with 10,000,000+ installs, and 4.84 stars from 7,136,001 App Store ratings. Live versions were 13.15.0 on Android and 13.17.0 on iOS.

That gap is the whole story, and it is not normal. We measured the same day: American Airlines sits at 4.81 on Google Play, Delta at 4.77, United at 4.71. Southwest sits at 4.42. Only Alaska, mid-merger with Hawaiian, scores lower at 4.18. The Southwest app is not equally broken on both platforms. It is a specific Android problem sitting behind a very good iOS average.

Quick Answer

The boarding pass is the single biggest failure cluster. 53 of the 290 Android reviews, roughly one in five, mention the boarding pass, and most of them are not complaining about design. They could not get the pass out of the app at the airport.

The worst version of that was a release regression. In late March and April 2026, build 13.6.0 shipped a full-screen 'Transportation of Hazardous Materials' acknowledgement whose Continue button landed off the bottom of the screen and would not scroll. 16 reviews describe it, Samsung devices are named repeatedly, April negatives spiked to 57 against a 23 to 35 monthly baseline, and 51 of that month's reviews sit on 13.6.0.

My Trips does not reliably hold your reservation. 16 reviews describe logging in, seeing an empty trip list, and retyping a confirmation number every single time. If the ticket was booked through a third party like Expedia, reviewers say it never attaches at all.

The app does not keep you signed in. 33 reviews mention login, password resets, account numbers or lockouts.

Notifications are used to sell flights. 27 reviews mention notification spam. Several say they disabled the promotions channel and still received fare-sale pushes, while a smaller group reports the opposite failure: no delay notification for a flight that was actually delayed.

Errors and slowness are the background hum. 34 reviews mention an error message, 29 mention slowness or endless loading, 29 mention gate, delay or flight status information being stale.

What 290 Negative Reviews Say

Shares below are proportions inside the 1-3 star subset. Most reviews touch more than one theme, so they do not sum to 100.

1. The Boarding Pass Wall (53 reviews)

An airline app has one job that cannot be deferred: produce a scannable pass at a gate. This cluster is reviewers describing the moment it failed.

Hands down the worst flight experience I've ever had! The app is terrible and not user friendly. Check in is difficult, getting a boarding pass was impossible, and we had to go through the security line twice because of that.

App continues freezing with error message after agreeing to assignment of emergency exit seat. Hours before flight and after checking in, I still can not retrieve boarding pass. called customer service, they could do nothing and stated I must go to ticket counter at Boston Logan airport.

will not show my boarding pass after checking in I makes me check in every time I want to see my pass.

Closed/reopened, uninstalled/reinstalled, didn't fix anything. When it did eventually cooperate I still couldn't pull up my boarding pass, the button that had been there was just gone. Just gave up and got our passes printed at the service desk. HAVE YOUR CONFIRMATION # WRITTEN DOWN, DO NOT RELY ON THIS APP.

For $750 flights on dated aircraft you'd think they could afford developers to make an app that shows the boarding pass. how hard is it?

The Google Wallet path, which is the obvious workaround, has its own failure loop on Android:

App is broken, cannot save boarding pass to wallet on Android. Just opens a browser and is not logged in. Login in browser, says not checked in. Check in get an error, but shows save to google wallet button. Click it, opens ANOTHER browser window that is not logged in. Rinse repeat forever. Fix it please.

whats the point of the app if i need to go to the website to add my boarding pass to Google Wallet?

It won't save the boarding pass to Google Wallet anymore.

That last one is dated 25 July 2026 on build 13.14.0, which matters: the wallet complaint is current, not a leftover from the spring.

2. The April Regression: A Warning Screen With No Way Past It

This is the clearest single defect in the data set, and it is worth separating because it has a date, a build number, a device pattern and a user-discovered workaround.

Southwest shows a hazardous materials acknowledgement between check-in and the boarding pass. In build 13.6.0 that screen rendered full height on tall Android displays, pushing the Continue button off-screen with no scroll. The pass sat one tap away, behind a tap nobody could make.

When attempting to get boarding pass, it takes you to the Hazardous Materials claimer, but you messed it up with the new update that it takes up the entire screen and hides the 'Continue' button and you can't click on it, and it doesn't scroll up or down to get to it. I have a Galaxy S23Ultra, a 6.3' screen. Shrink the darn disclaimer. I doesn't need to be full screen

I can no longer get a boarding pass. When it takes you to the screen about hazardous materials, the continue button is no longer visible on my Samsung phone

my Samsung won't advance past the hazardous materials screen. I don't have an option to continue.

Flying today, I can't open the app and it is now stuck on Southwest blue screen and will not open. Multiple restarts and no update available. Uninstalled and reinstalled and now stuck on 'Transportation of Hazardous Materials' checkin screen without ability to scroll to proceed.

can't get past 'hazardous materials' acknowledgement when trying to get boarding passes. Cannot continue ot back out. I had to use browser to continue.

cannot pull up my boarding pass. I just get a hazardous materials screen that locks up. I have to close the app to get out of it. had to print my boarding pass from my computer.

The single most useful review in the entire data set is a three-star one, because the reviewer solved it themselves:

I was having problems getting past the Hazardous Material page to view my boarding pass and it was driving me mad. I read another review saying they were experiencing the same issue. Once, I decreased the font size in my phone settings I was able to select and continue to view the boarding pass.

Shrinking the system font or display size shrinks the disclaimer text, which pulls the button back onto the screen. That is a layout bug diagnosed by a passenger, not by a release note.

Honest qualifier: we found no hazardous-materials complaints on builds after the 13.6.x line, so this specific regression appears to have been fixed by early May 2026. It stays in the article for two reasons. Phones that have not updated still ship the broken build, and the pattern it demonstrates, a mandatory interstitial standing between a checked-in passenger and their pass, is the same pattern the current complaints describe in other forms.

3. Trips That Refuse to Save (16 reviews)

Even though I log into my account each time I use the Southwest Airlines app my trip is never there. I have to type in my confirmation number every single time.

I'm flying for a company meeting. Our travel department booked this flight for me. I logged in and checked into my flight using the app, changed my seat using the app.. But it won't 'remember' my flight. It says I have no upcoming trips and I have to manually 'retrieve my reservation' every time (type in first name, last name, confirmation #) and watch it buffer for 1-2 minutes.

useless...when you select 'my trip' your trip is never there. You are required to enter the dang confirmation number every time even though you are signed into the app. What's the point in having the app?

I love this airline, but the app interface absolutely sucks. It never works to add my flights to my calendar, and when I book through an external site like Expedia and then retrieve my reservation in the Southwest app, it doesn't save my trip in the Southwest app, so I have to look up my reservation with the confirmation number every time I open the app.

Horrible app. Search flights by confirmation number successfully but the flight doesnt stay in 'My Trips'.

The iOS version of the same complaint adds a detail worth noting, because it is the only place in this data set where two Southwest surfaces disagree with each other:

When I open the app, my reservation from my recent session is nowhere to be found, even once I'm at the airport and checked in. Instead I have to search for it again. The app even completely logged me out while at the airport after having used it minutes earlier, with no logout action from me. On top of that, the in-app boarding pass shows my flight on time, while the iOS Wallet app boarding pass for the same flight shows a delay.

4. A Login That Does Not Stick (33 reviews)

can't login with email have to use an account number. doesn't keep you logged in so you have to look up the number. have had to reset password multiple times. if your flight was not booked with sw directly you cannot add it to my trips so you have to lookup your reservation every time.

Constantly getting locked out of my account. I need it to be reset every time I use it, which is a few times per year. It's incredibly frustrating. I have my username, account number, and password. I don't see why it doesn't work.

Definitely the worst airline app I've used. Tried creating an account approximately 37 times, with an error every time. Managing the flight is essentially impossible without being logged in, but you can't log in because the app sucks.

I dont use the app much, but when I do its the worst. every time I open the app I have reset my password. the website is just as bad. been trying for 3 days to login for my flight info. still can't.

I have the same complaint as everyone else, we shouldn't have to put in our information every time we log into the app as a guest. Every other airline app allows you to log in as a guest and retain your information.

5. The Text Field That Accepts One Letter

Three reviews describe the same odd defect on different screens, and it is worth flagging because it looks like a keyboard focus bug rather than a server problem.

The app works fine for the most part. However, when I try to enter in my information, the app won't let me type. It enters 1 letter of my name then stops. I have to use the computer to purchase any airline tickets or upgrades. I have a Pixel 9.

when I go to pay for my flight I can only type in my first name from the credit card information and will not let me type any further

The chat feature is not working. It only lets me type one letter and locks up.

The workaround every one of them found is the same: finish the transaction on a desktop browser.

6. Bookings and Cancellations That Go Wrong With Money Attached

Twice now months apart, this app does not let me book. The first time I called because the money was taken from my account but no tickets ever came. The rep said I did not have tickets amd had to wait foe the money to come back. This second time, today, my SIL is dying in the hospital and I am trying to book flights for family and I get an error after checkout. But when I checkout again, it says a successful transaction has already been completed with this token. No flights booked

I paid for an upgrade and it charged my pay pal and it didn't give me the upgrade of my seat so I tried it again and it did the same thing so 88 dollars later with no seat upgrade

I tried multiple times to change my seats with up charges thru the app and it said it confirmed but never changed my seats.

The most dangerous one in the whole set is a cancellation interface problem:

when canceling flights, passengers listed are already prechecked. so when it says 'select passengers to cancel'.... that makes it all confusing. It cancelled tickets for the wrong people. Theres no 'undo' and you have the only option of calling the airlines to correct THEIR app's error.

If you cancel one traveller out of a party, read that screen twice. A pre-checked passenger list plus no undo is a combination that turns a misread into a phone call at best.

7. Notifications That Sell Instead of Inform (27 reviews)

The app generates advertisement notification, and hides the settings to disable them. Users want notifications about the flights they have booked; they don't want notifications with whatever stupid marketing text Southwest chooses to send every 3 hours.

I have your 'promotions' notifications channel turned off, and you still advertised a sale to me over a push notification.

Sends spam notifications. I disabled promotional notifications in their settings and they still sent a push notification for a sale on fares but labeled it as 'Southwest News'.

Notifications.. they won't stop. I've modified the in app notification settings but it keeps giving me adverts about flight deals. Trash. If I fully disable them using the Android OS configuration, then I won't get my flight updates for tickets I've purchased.

The app works fine, but Southwest abuses the notification feature to sell you flights. I allow airline apps to send notifications because I need them while traveling. No other airline app uses notifications to sell product. I will only install it while traveling with SWA.

And the inverse, from a reviewer who edited their review at Southwest's request:

the app won't add my flights to 'My Trips', I have to lookup my reservation - despite having notifications for the app enabled, I do not receive any notifications (including when my flight was delayed)

That pair is the real complaint. The channel that should carry a gate change carries a fare sale, and the delay notification does not arrive.

8. Operational Data That Arrives Late or Not At All (29 reviews)

Not great at all anymore. Doesn't update flight info, gate changes etc in real time, especially when the app needs updated

Slow, difficult to find the information you want, requires navigating multiple menus to find simple things like a departure gate. Mostly worthless.

why doesn't it update bag status to tell me what carousel it's on? I was at the carousel with my flight on the screen and nothing was coming. After like 10 minutes, I went to the baggage desk and they told me it was on a different carousel by checking the bag tag on their computer.

Not user friendly at all when you need it to. Itinerary with a connection and this app shows everything except your arrival gate to help figure out your connection.

I've tried about 10 times to make touchless tsa work in CLT and Dal never works.

What Actually Fixes These

In the order worth trying, mapped to the failures above.

1. Get the pass out of the app the night before, not at the airport. Check in at T-24, open the boarding pass immediately to confirm it renders, then add it to your phone wallet. If it renders once and lands in the wallet, the app can fail later without stranding you.

2. If a full-screen disclaimer blocks the Continue button, shrink your display. Android Settings, Display, then reduce font size and display size, and reopen the pass. This is the reviewer-discovered fix for the 13.6.0 hazardous-materials wall and it works for any off-screen button caused by a layout that does not scroll. Set it back afterwards.

3. Keep the browser as your parallel path. Multiple reviewers who could not get past a stuck screen in the app completed check-in at southwest.com in a mobile browser or printed at home. The website and the app are different code paths and they fail at different times.

4. Write down the confirmation number and keep a screenshot of the pass. Since My Trips frequently comes up empty, the confirmation number is what actually retrieves your reservation, and a screenshot survives a logged-out session, a dead network and an app that will not launch. Airport kiosks and the counter both work from the confirmation number too.

5. Log in with the Rapid Rewards account number rather than the email address, and reset your password on a quiet day. Several reviewers report that email sign-in fails where the account number works. Do not discover your password is broken on the morning of a flight.

6. Book directly if you want the trip to appear in the app. Reservations bought through a travel agency or an online travel agent are the ones reviewers say never attach to My Trips. You can still retrieve them by confirmation number, but you will do it every time.

7. Finish payment on a desktop if a field stops accepting text. The one-letter typing bug appears on payment screens and chat. Do not retry the purchase repeatedly in the app, because one reviewer describes exactly that ending with money debited and no ticket issued.

8. Turn off promotional notifications per channel, not app-wide. In Android Settings, Apps, Southwest, Notifications, disable the marketing categories individually and leave flight status enabled. Reviewers report the promo pushes still slip through under other labels, so if that continues, the honest trade is to keep notifications on while travelling and mute the app between trips.

9. Verify every purchase against your bank, not against the confirmation screen. The checkout errors in this set include a token that reports a completed transaction while no booking exists. Screenshot the confirmation, then check the card statement.

What No Setting Will Fix

Some of these are architectural, and no toggle in the app changes them.

Several flows leave the app for a browser view and lose the session on the way, which is why reviewers get sent to a web page that says they are not signed in and, in the Google Wallet loop, sent again from there. One reviewer describes the whole thing bluntly: "it's still just a PWA. nothing native about it." That is a reviewer's opinion about the implementation, not a Southwest statement, but it matches the observed behaviour of sessions dropping at every handoff.

Gate assignments, bag carousels and delay timings come from airport and operations systems, not from the phone. When the app shows a stale gate, part of that is upstream. That excuses the delay, not the absence: rival apps in the same category surface the same feeds more reliably, which is why Southwest's Play rating trails theirs by three tenths of a star.

What Is Not the App's Fault

Fairness requires naming what got mixed in. A large minority of these reviews are about the airline, not the software. 36 reviews mention bags and 31 mention seating, and most of those are describing the policy changes rather than a defect: paying to check bags, and being assigned a seat instead of choosing one at the gate.

App works fine, the airline has become a ripoff. $45 per bag? Nothing special about this airline anymore.

New seating situation sucks. Personally was a fan of what made Southwest different, and now they suck as much as every other airline.

I miss the old Southwest. The new seating system is terrible. The old system was unique in the industry and it worked.

Those are real customer experiences and they are clearly driving some of the one-star volume, but they are commercial decisions, and counting them as app defects would inflate every number above. We also excluded reviews that describe delays, cancellations, hold times and crew behaviour, which are operational, plus the reviews that contain no describable failure at all.

There is one genuine crossover worth naming. Because seats are now assigned and bags are now paid for, more of the transaction happens inside the app, so a checkout bug or a seat change that confirms and does not apply now costs money in a way it did not when boarding was open seating and bags were free. The policy did not break the app. It raised the price of every remaining bug.

The Bottom Line

The Southwest app is not the disaster its 75% one-star negative mix suggests, and its 4.84 iOS average across seven million ratings proves that most passengers fly without touching any of this.

What the 290 Android reviews describe is narrower and more specific: an app that forgets you, does not hold your trip, and has repeatedly put an unclearable screen between a checked-in passenger and their boarding pass. Those failures land at exactly the two moments they cost the most, at check-in and at the gate.

Until the Android build catches up with the iOS one, treat the app as a convenience and not as your only ticket. Pull the pass early, put it in your wallet, keep the confirmation number somewhere the app cannot lose it.

Read the current 1-3 star reviews yourself on the Southwest review page, check the trust summary at is Southwest legit, compare travel apps with better complaint ratios, or see the iOS listing on the Southwest iOS review page.

Related reading: Delta vs United vs Southwest: 6 Airline Apps Ranked compares the major carrier apps by complaint pattern, and GEICO App Not Working After Update? documents the same kind of single-build regression evidence in an insurance app.