Originally Posted by
jumpingenes
Yup, UA870 on Tuesday takes the aircraft from UA1758 (10am departure from LAX on Monday after a ferry flight from SFO) making apparently an immediate turn back to SFO at 9pm-ish. The UA840 on Tuesday is scheduled as an on-time departure, taking the UA863 plane doing the MEL run. Happy to see no cancellations downstream of Sunday's UA839.. They've got this game down pat, so much practice...
It'll be interesting to see if they can pull this off. They've done the morning replacement flight a few times recently, but I don't think they've ever then re-used that plane for a same-day return to the US.
1758 is due to arrive at 7:38pm, which gives them just over 3 hours until the SYD curfew kicks in. As long as they arrive on-time that's plenty of time, but anything more than a short delay puts them at risk...