rebooking everybody on the next available flights that have seats. Everything gets completely locked up the moment the flight is cancelled. As time goes on, people call and move to other flights or cancel altogether. Business travelers just stay in town and bill the company rather than take some crappy alternative, some people cancel because now they'll miss the wedding or the ship or whatever. After a couple of hours, things shake out and seats open up. Just because they tell you there's nothing they can do now, doesn't mean there won't be options in a few hours.

I was told by the gate agent that there were no seats for my wife to get home with us, she had to stay another night in VA. The CS rep at the main SWA counter looked it all up and said the same. I kept calling the phone agent and after a 2 hour wait, there were 14 open seats on the flight with us, so we all stayed together.