Originally Posted by
Often1
"Protecting" one person means taking a seat out of inventory for someone who 100% needs it. That's why it's rarely done nowadays.
The seat is only out of inventory until the pax either makes the original connection, or the pax misconnects (in which case the protected pax 100% needed it!).
Protection on the other hand offers the original pax the peace of mind of knowing they have an alternate flight, instead of getting to the airport and being told, "Sorry, the next available flight is 2 days from now... and you're on your own for meals and hotel because it was WX."
It's very, very shortsighted to think protection shouldn't be done because it somehow costs other pax inventory.
Originally Posted by
Cargojon
Also I disagree that protection on a later flight is "rarely" done nowadays. I've had it done on each of my last 2 trips during August.
Indeed; I've been protected several times in August and September when UA's oh-so-typical poor reliability bugs struck.