N960AS From Switzerland, joined Apr 2000, 466 posts, RR: 8 Reply 3, posted (11 months 2 weeks 2 days 10 hours ago) and read 1446 times:
...and on 6/6 and 6/7 it did IAD-LAX-IAD flights subbing for the usual early evening 777. Imagine by annoyance that the one time the 777 flight was too early for me I missed this and was on a late night 757.
strfyr51 From United States of America, joined Apr 2012, 488 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (11 months 2 weeks 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 1155 times:
Sometimes they're initial pilot IOE flights for New Captians. it's not that unusual. We've sent 744's to Hawaii on occasion when the pass riders became too plentiful for the station to handle especially when there's some major event happening. I think you might see the same thing around OLYMPIC time in London I doubt that it will be announced. It'll just happen to soak up the throngs of passengers
Roseflyer From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 8747 posts, RR: 52 Reply 5, posted (11 months 2 weeks 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 1007 times:
The 747 is the only airplane in the UA fleet with enough seats to cover a flight on the six 2-class 777-200s. Since there are no spare 2-class 777s, when one has maintenance (either scheduled C check or unscheduled), a flight will get swapped with a 747. UA prefers to swap them out on domestic turns from SFO which is a 747 pilot base, but sometimes the 747 will end up flying to HNL.
UA operates several routes as virtual spare routes. The SFO-IAD route is known to routers and dispatchers as a sacrificial route if they need the 2-class 777 elsewhere. UA will do the same with SFO-ORD, ORD-IAD, DEN-ORD and DEN-IAD. Anytime there are irregular operations, those are the routes that have the widebodies swapped out. It’s not fun for the passengers to not get the widebody they planned and the gate agents having to redo all the seats, but operating sacrificial widebody routes between the hubs is one of the strategies that helps UA maintain very high international departure dispatch reliability.
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From United States of America, joined Apr 2006, 19 posts, 
From Switzerland, joined Apr 2000, 466 posts, 
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