NoDestinations

It's almost 2am. I woke up to the email from United that my flight was cancelled. I got on the phone with United Premier Desk, rebooked on American Airlines. Agent had to call AA to verify availability. Once rebooked, I refreshed my app, and to my surprise, the original United flight went from being listed as Cancelled to listed as On-Time. I called United back, and the agent verified that the flight was on time. This was 20 minutes after the flight listed as cancelled... what is going on!?!

Flight was listed as cancelled due to weather in the route system. Houston fog anyone?

SFHokie

It might help if you can provide some of the flight details, like flight number and departure location. Otherwise no one could provide any more color to your story than you have.

NoDestinations

ORD-BHM, Tuesday, Dec. 19. UA5643.

NoDestinations

findark

Flight was filed as canceled for 12 minutes between 00:53 and 01:05 CST. Possibly a clerical error as tonight's ORD-BHM diverted to BNA before continuing.

Looks to me like it is operating.

s0ssos

Probably a contractor. Last day at work.

SFHokie

Or maybe the first one. "Ooops, sorry about that boss!"

goodeats21

I have had this happen before on a United Express flight.
Communication / Coordination between Express Operators and United technology is poor.

More computer issues? Flight shows on time. 1k desk says cancelled

Probably not the same root cause as yours, but there are occasional blips when United Express is involved.
Flyer Friendly.

seenitall

What amazes me is that OP received an email notification of the cancellation so quickly. My experience is that these notifications are either delayed, or are never delivered. So at least some part of UA's IT systems seem to have been improved.

narvik

Although only THEN when it's not helpful, it seems.

getagb

So did you keep the AA flight and request ORC for the UA flight?

JBord

I've had a phantom cancellation a couple times over the years. It's annoying because I get the email or see online it's cancelled, but the first time I called the agent and she said it's not cancelled. Since I generally take what the agents say with a grain of salt, I was anxious all the way until I got to the airport and saw it on the monitor there. The second time, I couldn't get on another flight within the time I needed. While I was trying to figure out what to do, I looked again and the flight was mysteriously uncancelled, but now only half full -- I assume a bunch of people had rebooked before me and now it was empty.

BigJC

I'm amazed OP was rebooked without hassle on AA.

docbert

No other viable options on UA, and anything else would have required them to pay for a hotel. Sounds like as simple an OAL justification as you could find.

emcampbe

I’ve had this happen too, even going back to PMUA. For a long time, Pre-merger, UA has a ‘customer commitment with 10 or 12 points, among them, when they announced a delay or cancellation, it would stay (I.e., they wouldn’t announce an earlier departure or ‘un-cancel’ (my wording) a flight). Didn’t help when he wife and I stayed out for a nice dinner in downtown Chicago instead of grabbing take out when her flight announced a delay of 2 hours. Of course, that delayed time lasted about a half-hour, when they changed the flight back to the scheduled time. Bolted in a cab to the airport, and she boarded right before the door closed.

In another case, I was rebooked on an AA (Eagle) non-stop after UA ‘canceled’ my flight (while I was enroute to ORD), but by the time I was through security, I looked on the board and saw the UA flight was there again, and it did end up going (I stayed on the AA flight).