Originally Posted by Wet Hen

Thanks IAH... for trying to help me through all of this. You are right, I didn't explain my thought process well.

I do have a lot to learn about how flights are sold, and the rules that one silently agrees to when buying a flight. I have learned a lot from this process. I'm not as experienced as some of the folks here, and obviously I need to learn more about the airline industry.

What I do for a living is make predictions on future behavior based on past behavior, and various other forms of data, and I use math to do this. I'm very good at math, but I do sometimes get things wrong. One of the things I struggle with is looking at probabilities and realizing that someone is telling me something that is improbable, but I am being asked to behave as if it is probable. Sometimes I see these improbabilities before other people see them, and I experience the curse of Cassandra or Laocoon.

As presented by others in this thread, UA has a cancellation rate overall of under 2%. UA 3559 has been cancelled 6 out of 9 days at this point, and 50% cancellations since inception. What is the probability of something that happens 2% of the time, happening 6 out of 9 times? or 50% of the time? What does it take for this to become such an outlier such that the traveller can be permitted to make a change?

A year ago I had a very bad experience with a flight, not on United, that I later learned was either cancelled or more than 2 hours late 75% of the time. Yet, when I booked it, no one mentioned that this was a booking that the most probable outcome, by far, was significant disappointment. I don't expect perfection from airlines. Delays and cancellations will happen. But if an airline can only honestly say that the most likely outcome of a booking is cancellation, and that is a dramatic outlier from their typical performance, how can they refuse a request to reschedule?

Meanwhile, UA has 6 other flights daily from BNA-EWR that have much lower cancellation rates-- some are basically zero. If YOU want to buy a flight on the flights with a near zero percent cancellation rate, YOU can. The seats are for sale right now, but I cannot buy them to help my situation out. I am restricted. I am restricted because I bought a flight from Nashville to Dublin 7 months ago that I exchanged for a flight from Nashville to Shannon when the airline cancelled a leg of my flight. At the time I booked this, I booked the most expensive flight, not the cheap one. I cannot change to a flight that is less likely to be cancelled, and I cannot buy a ticket on the more reliable flight, but why? Does this restriction even make sense?

Since this has happened I have read the fare rules a number of times. I honestly can't see how this situation is spelled out in terms that are clear enough for me to understand that this would happen to me.

Note also that UA is in the process of shifting from 7 daily flights from BNA-EWR to 6 daily flights from BNA-EWR. Officially, this goes into effect just days after after my flight of course. Perhaps one way to effect that change early is to cancel a flight every day?

This will pass. I will get what I get, and that is how it will be. But is it right?