Q: Is an airline liable for missing a flight, which a three hour wait to check baggage and get a boarding pass?

A: Southwest has self-service kiosks where passengers can get a boarding pass and check their baggage themselves. A SWA passenger literally only has to drop their tagged checked baggage at a counter for it to get put onto a conveyor belt to be loaded onto the airplane. If there was some sort of malfunction with the kiosks which created a three-hour line at the baggage counter, you may have a valid claim. But having flown SWA for decades including many flights to and from Austin, from my personal experience, I think that is unlikely.

Now, if there was a delay caused by TSA screening of the baggage, that would not be SWA's fault, and you would have no chance at all of recovering anything from it.

A: I do note that on April 10, 2024--following the solar eclipse and one of the busiest days ever at the Austin airport--the baggage conveyor system for multiple airlines reportedly broke at 10:45 AM. That was an airport problem--not an airline problem. But SWA had warned its passengers that it expected April 10 & 11 to be unusually busy days and to check in for their flights online or on the mobile app to obtain mobile boarding passes--which is the way 95+% of SWA passengers check in already anyway.

Although not required to do so because the delays were not the airline's fault, SWA offered all effected passengers full refunds on its tickets. Perhaps, you were one of these passengers.