Wow! I arrived at LAX yesterday on UA1605 from IAH, which pulled into Gate 62 about 2PM. I overheard the GA at Gate 61 (UA 1179, the 2:49PM flight to EWR) announce a "severe oversell" situation, and that they were looking for volunteers to give up their seats & get re-booked for today's 2:49PM flight to EWR, since that was the soonest available opening.
2 things came to mind immediately:
1) The earlier flight to EWR must have gone MX, and they way overbooked UA 1179, and all nonstop LAX-EWR flights in the next 24 hours.
2) That's very odd: You mean that the world's largest airline cannot manage to find a way to get the VDB'd and IDB'd customers to EWR (or the NY area) in less than 24 hours during a non-weather event??? Come on, people -- use some creativity! If I need to get somewhere, and I get IDB'd (or want to take a bump), I'll usually accept a connection which gets me there sooner instead of a non-stop which gets me there later. The combined UA flies to several cities which have nonstops to EWR. Get me to ORD, or SFO, or DEN, and I'll fly the redeye to EWR. Or, fly me to my final destination through another hub instead of through EWR. I find it very hard to believe that the agents tried very hard to mix metals (much less re-book pax on other airlines) in order to help the displaced customers get to their destinations.