Originally Posted by
Miggles
Look at the cancellations on a stormy day at IAD. They are dominated by United Express flights. Last summer on a trip from IAD-FRA all 4 of us in my family got an op-up to global first. The flight attendant told me the original holders of those tickets had been stranded on grounded RJ flights due to thunderstorms. She went on to say this happens very frequently. So I got a free upgrade at the expense of someone unfortunate enough to have an RJ segment in a paid international first class journey. I am pretty sure they will think twice before booking travel that has a connection so prone to disruption.
I think you're misplacing causality. The flights aren't being cancelled because they're UAX, they're being cancelled because they impact the fewest number of people. If you replace 20 50-seat RJ flights with 10 100-seat mainline E190 (as if the loss of frequency won't cost you any customers), UA will still favor cancelling those 100 seat flights over the 150-300 seat mainline flights. And the cancellations still impact the same number of people.