I saw a TED A320 at DCA this afternoon (10/16). It appeared that flight 610 (ORD-DCA) and flight 621 (DCA-ORD) were switched from mainline aircraft to a TED. I am sure quite a few passenagers lost their upgrades.

Judging from several posts on this board, UA have been frequently substituting mainline 320 with Ted 320. My questions:

1) Does Ted have excess A320? I would think UA (based on the flight frequency and rotation) have the right number of Ted A320 to maximize fleet utilization.

2) When a TED A320 is used on mainline (due to last minute sub, etc.), does it mean a mainline A320 would have sub that particualr Ted A320 on a Ted flight?

Although UA and Ted are one, they are still two separate brand names. I have not seen a KLM aircraft substituting for Air France or SQ aircraft on Silk Air route.

Just curious.