Originally Posted by
dkc192
I get this reasoning and can sympathize a little with the current state of airline ops, but IMHO you only get to play this card a couple times before it gets old and you lose customer trust. First a 772HD on IAH-LHR, then another on IAD-MUC, and now this, all in the span of what, a month? 752s and 772HDs are not valid long-term spare aircraft for routes that are more-or-less Polaris guaranteed and sell PE.
I'm not sure I agree. The Delta playbook lately has been to operationally cancel flights and they are constantly on the news for it. 10% of flights were cancelled over Memorial Day weekend - and reading the June meltdown thread over there tells me a lot of those passengers would have loved to have a aircraft swap rather than a ruined vacation or missed meetings with a cancelled flight.
UA has largely stayed off the radar of negative flight cancellation news - but I bet if they start just cancelling flights that would change.
It is easy to just say cancel the flight when it isn't your vacation or you have to be somewhere.