Future flight exists but no longer in schedule?
 

I've never seen this before, and I'm hoping someone else here has some insight as to why US is doing this and what will eventually occur.

Several weeks ago, I booked two award seats for me and a family member on US (all express flights) for travel in June. Earlier this week I wanted to buy a ticket for a third family member on the same flights. I could not find the same itinerary on usairways.com reservations. It's also not showing at other sites (expedia, travelocity, etc). So I investigated, and one flight segment is now missing from the flight schedule (not just reservations- the timetables as well). This was one of two nonstops a day between a city pair, now there's only one. And this isn't just one day in June- it's missing for months. On usairways.com, my itinerary looks ok, and I can even select seats for the flight in question (it's a CRJ, and two-thirds of the seats are open).

I called US res, and the agent says everything is fine with the flight in question. I then asked the agent to try to make the reservation for the additional family member, which she attempted, and then she says, "oh, that one flight is sold out". It was zeroed out in all fare classes. There's no other saver award seats that day, so I can't change our award reservation to allow travel with the other family member.

Has anybody seen this before? It seems strange to sell a flight for a while, then zero it out for a period when it's under half full, especially when it appears this is happening for weeks or months on this particular flight. What gives for this "phantom flight"? Is it likely to be officially eliminated at some point?

Yes, saw it before. The flight was discontinued and they didn't bother to call me. I called the service center and the conversation went something like this.:

Hi, I'd like to check on my reservation
Yes, it looks fine.
Actually, it looks to me like the originating flight was canceled
oh, you're right it was. I'll rebook you to the later flight to LAS
No, if you look, that will get me to PHX too late to catch the LIH flight
Oh, you're right, that's a problem. Hmm...
Can you book my on the morning direct flight to PHX?
Oh, sure I can do that.
Thanks.


No telling what would have happened if I hadn't seen that cancellation and/or been able to tell the agent how to fix it.

Were you actually able to change seats or just able to bring up the seat map where you would change seats. I could get all the way to the map, but when I actually changed a seat the web site would puke.

I've had that happen (a few times actually)and then it reappeared on the schedule a few days later. The flight was definitely not full. I also wonder why it happens.

I am able to change seats on this flight with no problems.

It's been at least 3 days now that it's been gone from the schedule. I guess I'll wait for the flight to reappear, or for US to get rid of it for good (which is fine with me, because then I can pick new flights).

Thanks for the replies.

Just so you know, you could be in for a long wait.

On an award trip I had booked last year US dropped all ABE-PIT service. Even though the flight was gone, it took 3 weeks for their computer system to update to the point where the CSRs could actually see that the flights were gone and not coming back.

After all of the issues, I managed to get on UA for the domestic part of the ticket.