Originally Posted by
fezzington
I have no knowledge of this exact flight, but could they thought there was a fix possible in LAS? Then, it became evident that no such fix could be made, and the decision was made to ferry the plane to IAH to minimize disruption to the system?
Another possibility is that the fix could have been accomplished at LAS, but the right part(s) and/or qualified people would not be available until much later, or at very high cost. This happened on a Saturday, so 24-48 hours to get parts and people in place at a non-hub station is not unheard of depending on the nature of the fix. In that event UA knows that the aircraft can't do the flight and simply looks at what the lowest cost alternatives would be, including ferrying an empty plane to a hub.