I had an interesting experience yesterday on Southwest. I flew WN3125 on the 5th (and final) leg of its DTW-DEN-SFO-LAX-SLC-SEA run. When I saw that the 2nd and 3rd legs were running about 2 hours late, I figured my leg would probably be late too even though southwest.com showed the 4th and 5th legs departing on time. I actually called Southwest but the agent didn't know any more than I did.

Since I was skiing deep powder at Solitude that day, I took a few extra runs, then saw the 4th leg was boarding in LAX -- 2 hours before it would ultimately arrive there. In other words, they substituted a 2nd plane for the LAX-SLC-SEA legs and rerouted anyone who had been planning to connect in LAX. I dashed to the airport just in time to make my flight.

I have seen misconnects like this before where there was a scheduled change of equipment anyway (common on flights with international & domestic legs), but it surprised me that Southwest would do that on one of its many multi-segment domestic routes that of course does not normally change equipment. Yes, I know Southwest reported all along that my flight would be on time, so I was being too clever for my own good by monitoring the earlier segments. And most pax were probably much better off having the 2nd plane put into service. But still, this surprised me, and almost messed up my trip.