As an IT person I don't find this incredible at all. UA is using a large complex legacy IT system with multiple subsystems responsible for different parts of the operation. It is almost certainly a non-trivial task to have open R space kick-off the upgrade list processing, it will also need to be weighed in amongst other code fixes that need to be done some of which might affect a larger customer segment, be required to meet legislation or be costing UA money.

There are always bugs in code, the fact they haven't been fixed yet says very little about the ability or desire to fix them in future.