sagitarius

I’m booked on UA74 EWR-FRA on 5/15. Res page shows plenty of seats. Checked UA site to see if canceled—no flight 74 to be seen for 10 days either side of 5/15. Called UA and was told flight is going!! They won’t admit it’s canceled so they don’t have to refund. This is criminal. Anyone know about this scam?

LarryJ

It looks like it will cancel, but hasn't been cancelled yet. Capacity has been set to zero. They are behind. They're still working on flight cancellations in April. Give it a little more time.

Mwenenzi

Seat allocated have never been an indicator of seat sales. Since the introduction of basic economy even less
Friday 15 May is ~ 6 weeks away. As post above as it gets closer would expect UA to do something more. There are 1000's of people booked on flights that may/will be cancelled.

RobOnLI

That flight will be cancelled in the future but for now UA isn't selling seats on it based on it being zeroed out. They just can't handle the number of cancellations they are forced to do right now and are focused on close-in flights right now because even though there are only a handful to a dozen booked on each flight they're cancelling it's still labor intensive to either process ETCs, refunds or move people to new flights. Give them time. They aren't maliciously holding your money. They just simply can't process all the cancellations right now so it's easier to just zero out the flight so no new people book reservations on it which require further handling later.

-RM

zebranz

Don't sweat it- plenty of time between now and May.
Welcome to FT. Might want to use different terminology rather than criminal and scam.
Most airlines and people do not know what to do. All are waiting as long as possible to officially cancel flights.
I have domestic flights end of April still there and international flights in May planned and still there. Just sit back and wait. Otherwise there will be a run on alka seltzer (is that still on the market).

EWR764

The writing is on the wall. May's schedule will look a lot like April's; meaning, very few longhaul flights. UA74 is the new (late) frequency to FRA that most certainly won't start in May, maybe not in 2020 at all. I expect to soon hear that most of the seasonal EU flying won't be happening, especially to cruise ports (ATH, VCE, FCO, BCN, etc.), since the COVID crisis has totally scrapped the booking window for summer vacations. We'll probably be looking at 25% or less of last year's TATL flying.

Certainly not "criminal" conduct. These are unprecedented times, don't be helpless... expect to be rebooked on the early flight, or be proactive and do it yourself.

Often1

1. It is not cancelled.
2. It is not a scam.

There is an international crisis called Covid-19 which is affecting the ability of carriers, not just UA, to schedule well in advance.

It is not yet clear what flights UA (and LH) will operate on the route on May 15 and thus UA is not selling seats. The fact that UA is not selling the flight means that it is considering cancelling. On the other hand, it may come to pass that this flight is operated and others are cancelled and those passengers transferred to this one.

If and when your flight is cancelled, you will be entitled to a refund if you wish. If the flight is not cancelled, then you will not be (unless you have a refundable ticket), but you may be entitled to a voucher.