Originally Posted by
harston_boy
Yeah, it's crazy. The cargo guys know that 925 on 7th NOV will be a B777, but the seat map and any similar access (including what UA agents can see) show it as a 77Q. I guarantee that when people check-in, there will be a mad panic by staff at the airport to re-assign seats. It's not just a problem in C/J, it's also bad for Y and Y+ customers, as the old config is 2-5-2 and the new 3-3-3 so there are lots of people who had an aisle seat, who end up with a middle. United really need to fix this issue, or else have someone manually check the cargo site 7 days from departure and change the seat map if necessary!
It isn't crazy at all - I think you're falling into the trap of thinking the airline business always runs as planned, whereas it doesn't and they have plans for that as well. I checked in for an A319 last week (at 16 hours ahead) and when I was at the airport they changed the gate and we were on an A320 - and our 319 went to somewhere else. It is all quite normal.
If you watch unitedcargo carefully you'll often see that the plan they had at 7 days out changes once or twice over the course of those seven days and often right up to the last minute. Unitedcargo doesn't ever give you a definitive prediction of what kind of plane you'll get - it simply gives you the current plan.
Seatmaps and seat assignments are not changed seven days out because there is a high likelihood that they may change again and so they leave it as it has been up until airport control. What happens then depends on various factors such as whether they know that there will be 2 77Qs at IAD, or DEN or SFO at that departure time (in which case OLCI may well work as they feel confident one of those will fly your route), but if there is only going to be one 77Q and two or three 777s then they hold off on check-in and seat assignments until much nearer departure.
If you use flightaware to track the actual planes you will see that there are some very common circuits that bring two 77Qs into Denver late afternoon and to LAX late morning, making DEN-LHR and LAX-LHR (and v.v) two of the more reliable flights for 77Qs. And using flightaware you should be able to see a couple of days ahead whether one or two of the new guys will be around for your departure.