I've had the same thing almost happen to me before on UX/Skywest, COS to LAX as it happens. Strangely the little operation in COS was able to round up a replacement FA (I told her when I boarded that I was *very* happy to see her, and she said she was *very* happy to be here; no doubt some extra pay kicked in). Very odd that Skywest couldn't wrangle an FA in LAX, but it was late at night and perhaps all the FAs were up to their FAA maximum flying quota for the day.

Anyway, my story isn't a cancellation, rather it is odd why there wasn't a cancellation. I was waiting at SJC for the flight to DEN. The incoming plane arrives, and the GA announces that due to external damage, the pilot refuses to fly it over the Rockies, but is willing to fly at low elevation to SFO. So nonstop service SJC to DEN now becomes direct service, with a stop and change of aircraft in SFO. So we fly to SFO to get a new plane, and presumably the old plane will get sent to the hangar to be fixed.

But that's not the weird part. When we get there, a gate change is announced for the SFO to SEA flight. The gate is moved from the gate X, the gate our SJC to DEN flight is going out of, to gate Y, the gate our SJC to DEN flight arrived at. In other words, the Denver passengers got the good plane, and the Seattle passengers got the plane that was going to fly low over the Pacific coast (presumably a long ways away from all those tall dormant volcanos that line the coast). I'd have mentioned to the Seattle passengers that they were flying unsafe metal (no the GA did not explain the risk), but I figured I'd be arrested, so I shut up, and took advantage of the SFO red carpet to board.

Obviously it ended well.

Moral of the story: ones base should be in Colorado in order to ensure quality aircraft. Life indeed is better here.