Originally Posted by
emcampbe
They can change the aircraft to whatever they want. Whether it makes sense to is another issue, but they certainly can. If they needed to downgage because, for example, a fleet planning change means they didn't have that size aircraft available anymore when they thought they would, it actually makes sense it would be on a route where there are multiple daily's as they could probably accomodate most of the pax across the several other departures.
That makes sense EXCEPT for two reasons: First, the morning flight from EWR-LHR is somewhat unique in that a lot of people take it (as I do) expressly to avoid a redeye and the jetlag that goes with it. The only other flights UA offers on that route are all redeyes. So it's not a matter of getting in just a couple hours later like you would on, say, EWR-LAX.
Second, according to the previous 764 Seatmap 3 days ago, the flight was nearly full in all cabins. I saw maybe 10 open seats or so total. So it doesn't seem like the change was made because of too many open seats in back, and that's a lot of reaccomodating they'll need to do if they're swapping out a widebody for a narrow-body.
Called Premier Desk this morning - they are still perplexed about what's going on and the website is still listing the flight as a 764 while showing a 752 seatmap right below it. I'm taking my chances on 21A which does still exist in E+ even if it ends up being a 764 after all. We'll see what happens!