Fantasy schedule for UA 179
 

For most of the last week or so UA 179 has been using the plane from UA 180. Lesse here

UA 179 dept EWR 2:30pm, boarding at 1:30
UA 180 arrive EWR 1:25pm

So UA 179 has been arriving HKG 1--2 hours late (duh!). The UA excuse is "Your flight departed late because we had to resolve an unexpected operational issue. "

Operational, yes. Unexpected, no. UA seems to have given up on this flight and is making zero effort. Thanks, Oscar.

If something happened a week ago which caused operations to be disrupted for a week (or so), would that not be unexpected?

I'm having trouble figuring out what that could be and why, if that's it, UA can't make the schedule reflect the facts. I'm writing this off to ineptitude, which is not new work for UA.

For today, the aircraft for UA 179 comes from DEL. Your conclusion is too drastic!
Happy New Year and Happy travel.

Yes, that's because 180 is running 9 hours late. It's using the 180 plane tomorrow, which is when I'm on 179. I'd be happy and surprised if they change the plane and I can leave on time.

That plane (3008) was expecting to stay in HKG for Polaris mod, and flight 180 was planned to be ship 3017, exiting HKG with Polaris. 3017 wasn't ready, so 3008 is being flown back and forth EWR-HKG until it can stay in HKG and ship 3017 is ready to exit. That's the unexpected operational issue.

Been watching the various flight from SFO/EWR, seems many of the flights have been delayed leaving the states. One flight from EWR was diverted to SFO and arrived 26 hours late, as the crew timed out. Several of the returned flights left 8 to 10 hours late. Seems like a lot of juggling of planes between US and HKG