I want to second what several others have said...

PLEASE cancel your reservation if you do not plan to show up at the airport for your flight. You need to do this as soon as you decide not to fly.

I was going from SJC to DFW yesterday and the airline had to combine two flights to Dallas because so many passengers no showed both flights. I think they airlines may be a bit leary after Tuesday of sending out planes that have multiple no shows and end up relatively empty.

The airlines are only allowing stranded passengers to be rebooked on flights with open seats.

Even getting protected on a later flight almost takes an act of God right now (I had to talk to three different individuals yesterday to ensure that I had a second seat yesterday should the first flight cancel, and they deleted that from the record as soon as I got a boarding pass for the first flight - long before I know whether the flight would go off).

If you are are not going to use the seat, please allow a stranded passenger to get the seat confirmation... otherwise your empty seat could go to waste if there are no gate standbys.