Aircraft change delay to weather delay
 

On December 18, 2009 I, my wife and my 9 month old baby were to fly from ATL to EWR on CO1152. Upon arriving at the gate in ATL I was told by CO agent that my flight was delayed due to late inbound aircraft, since CO made an aircraft change.

I looked up and found earlier that day, morning flight CO84 was cancelled due to mechanical problem (I confirmed with CO agent) and it looked like CO wanted to accomodate the CO 84 passengers by switching the CO1152 aircraft from B737-500 to B737-800.

I got onboard on CO1152 and the flight crew did all they could to ensure the flight was as pleasant as possible and made up some minutes. However, the pilot informed the passengers that the delay was to the weather.

I complained the conflicting story on CO website and now CO says the delay was due to weather.

Other EWR-ATL & ATL-EWR CO flights made ontime arrivals that day (except cancelled inboudn and outbound and my inbound and outbound.)

I was expecting some kind of "sorry for conflicting stories".. But reply was one line "Our records indicate flight 1152 on December 18, 2009 was delayed 56 minutes due to weather. I regret you feel the delay was for a Continental service reason."

While it was obviously an inconvenience, take comfort in the fact that your flight did go out. I've been the victim of the "MX to WX shenanigans (TM)" on the last flight out to my destination when the flight was cancelled. Better to get there late than to be left at an airport fending for yourself until at least the next day.

For the pax on CO84, the Mx means CO has to ante up.
For your later flight (are you sure it is CO1152?) you are guessing that the aircraft change was to accommodate pax from the earlier canceled CO84 and the change resulted in the late incoming. Maybe, maybe not. If it was weather, then it was a weather delay for you, but for the original CO84 pax who may have been on the plane with you it was still Mx.

all airlines overuse the weather card when in fact it is not. This is where there should be some oversight.

From my boarding pass
CO1152
5:00 p.m. Fri., Dec. 18, 2009
Atlanta, GA (ATL)
7:30 p.m. Fri., Dec. 18, 2009
New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty)
Boeing 737-500

I checked the inbound flight in every 5min that day right. It was B737-500 (MSY-EWR and EWR-ATL). All of a sudden it changed to B737-800 (LAX-EWR and EWR-ATL)and when it landed in EWR from LAX, it already passed the scheduled departure time of EWR-ATL.

But...
 

...equipment and weather problems are not mutually exclusive. Are you sure departure from EWR was not impacted at all by weather? There may have been an a/c exchange, but maybe weather/ATC may have further delayed departure. If both were involved, of course CO will invoke the latter. You have a better case if there was no weather/ATC problems involved at all.