Originally Posted by
hoodsurfer
Last week I took the same flight. And our plane had mechanical issues, so they told us we could use the plane coming in from Cancun. So we all switched gates, passanagers/luggage/crew etc.
As you noted, the airlines can and do swap planes when they feel it makes the most operational sense for them to do so. Just like you, I have no idea if they had overnighting planes at RDU that could have been swapped. If there was one and they didn't use it, the probably have reasons that have already been mentioned upthread, or there are other reasons, such as scheduled maintenance.