I rarely fly, and I'm trying to figure this out: We were booked on flight #123 (just being hypothetical) departing at 3:15 p.m. and arriving at 5:00 p.m. I just logged onto the airline's website to find out that flight #123 no longer exists. The new flight number is #789. The seats we originally had reserved were available to anyone, and we were never notified of the change. The new flight number has the SAME times as our orignal flight; just the number is different. But we were NEVER notified.

I called the airline and was originally told it was probably just an error... Please don't worry about it. I called back and finally got someone who said our orignal flight had been canceled, and she switched us to the updated flight number.

Is this common when flying? The airline just randomly changes the flight number?

My main concern is that it could happen again before we leave...Had we arrived at the airport without my having checked the airline's website, would we have been told, "Sorry. Your flight has been canceled. We'll have to get you on another flight." Or would we have automatically been switched to the new flight number?

We have another family member flying with us who is going to have to go through this whole thing, too, and try to get his ticket changed.