<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tvx:
DL used to this quite often. They would fold an earlier flight into a later flight and so long seat assignments, etc. They would notify you by phone a few or a couple of days out, but you would often get a center seat on a packed flight. It's why I stopped flying them unless absolutely necessary.</font>
There was an article in the Southwest magazine awhile back that addressed this perception. Their point was that cancelling a flight due to a light load also means that subsequent flights (some of which might be very full) will be cancelled as well, so it's not that simple. However, they did point out that flights are sometimes cancelled due to a mechanical problem or crew availability issues. In those cases, it would make sense to look at the flights departing within a certain time window, and divert the remaining equipment and crew to the fuller flights, and thus cancel the one with the lightest load. Thus, they inconvenience the fewest passengers, even though this can give rise to the perception that flights with light loads are often cancelled deliberately. This logic makes all the sense in the world to me, and I suspect that a similar thought process occurs at the other carriers as well.