I was perplexed (and admittedly annoyed) yesterday when the United Airlines website was selling seats on a flight that every agent claimed they could not book and some could not even find. One called it a “fake” flight. Was it a mysterious re-positioning flight that should never have been offered for sale in the first place?
Mysterious United Airlines Flight One Agent Called “Fake” And No One Could Book…
With the exception of its increased point-to-point Florida operations during the pandemic, United Airlines primarily offers flights that to/from one of its U.S. hubs (or former hub in Cleveland) to destinations around the country and world.
Yesterday, like every day this summer, was a total mess at Newark. A friend got stranded after arriving from Vienna and trying to transfer to Pittsburgh. His flight was cancelled and the next flight was cancelled, leaving him on a deep standby list for the one remaining flight of the day that was still operating.
Looking at united.com, I noticed another option–a strange one. He could fly from Newark to Pittsburgh via…Providence, Rhode Island?
I could have booked it on united.com ($1733) or using miles (103K) but he had an existing ticket from PIT-EWR so I told him to ask a lounge agent to rebook him on this routing. The flight was showing on time departing Newark and it would be the same aircraft continuing from Providence to Pittsburgh.
The agent could not see the flight. So I called United. The first agent I spoke with saw the flight but said it was under airport control and that she could not book it on her end. I found that strange, since I’m not aware of that limitation for United reservation agents.
I sent my friend up again to speak to a different club agent and he got the same response. I called again and this time the agent could not even find the flight.
How odd. The agent did rebook him on the Providence flight and then told him to “head to the gate. They’ll help you.”
“Head to the gate. They’ll help you.”
Famous last words…
The gate agent for the Providence flight had no idea about the Providence – Pittsburgh flight and said he could not book it. He called it a “fake” flight and said it would not really operate.
For good measure, my friend went to the club once more where he was told this flight does not exist. When he showed them the flight was for sale on united.com, the agents called it an error.
So what exactly happened to UA3287? Well, it operated.
I don’t know that there were any passengers on it, though. It may well have been a re-positioning flight considering all the cancellations yesterday.
But it was offered for sale for hours on united.com and I doubt that my friend would have been turned away had he been successful in scoring a confirmed seat.
CONCLUSION
United was offering a unique flight from Providence to Pittsburgh yesterday for sale on its website, but no airport or reservations agents could book it. Whatever the issue prohibiting the booking was, there were a lot of Pittsburgh folks stranded in Newark yesterday and plenty of seats on the Newark – Providence – Pittsburgh flights that could have brought people home.
It was a ferryflight.
Good thing they didn’t let him book. The flight to PVD arrived at 6:41, and the flight to PIT departed at 7:01. Not enough time.
Same plane.
The PVD-PIT most likely a crew reposition because Republic has a crew base at PIT. Sometimes these operate under Part 91 as ferry flights and not legal to carry revenue pax. Not sure about this case… often it’s at the discretion of the crew as it was for me earlier this year on a EGE-DEN flight delayed 13 hours. I was intending to drive to DEN to catch a redeye to the East Coast when I arrived EGE to pick up a rental car. I saw a E75 tail on the ramp and found the OO crew eating pizza on the landside. I asked them what was up, and they told me they were due to ferry the airplane back to DEN in an hour. It was a full, legal crew, so I asked them if I could hitch a ride, and they obliged. UGE staff at EGE hooked it up and I was good to go (there is a bit more to the story, totally above board, but a tale for another time) and I had the entire E75 to myself. Although definitely not the norm.
When EWR is experiencing significant flow control they will often do these flyovers where they cancel the inbound leg to Newark, outbound leg from Newark, and fly the aircraft direct from spoke to spoke in order to put it in position to operate the next Newark inbound.
It’s intended as a reposition, but in theory since its flying with crew why not operate it as a revenue flight? Presumably though it would run quite empty as only a few people would find out about it.
That’s insane. Just goes to show how completely messed up ops are around the country.
I travel out of PVD twice a month and have never seen this flight before. As others noted likely a flowover or ferry flight.
What a coincidence! I was at PVD yesterday afternoon and saw the display at the gate say a flight to Pittsburgh. I thought it was weird at the time since UA doesn’t fly that route and thought it must’ve just been a repositioning flight. And here I an today reading an article about it!
There are multiple possibilities, of which a repositioning flight seems to be a likely reason followed up with a database entry error that allowed the flight to displayed when it should not have been.
An additional reason why you may not be able to book is that they had a flight crew, but no cabin crew. Then it would be illegal to have non-employees on that flight.
Honestly, when you think of the billions of flights, flight crews, certification requirements, etc., we should be thankful that something like this is worthy of writing an article.
flew with 52 passengers delayed 15 min aircraft # n739yx arrived 1841
the trip from PVD to PIT was repos flt 3887-27
zero passengers a/c n739yx
correction 1st post flt 3652 flew with 52 pass. ewr to pvd
2nd correction flt 3287 was repos no pass. pvd to pit
I was in PVD yesterday (mother coming up from fort lauderdale on jetblue) and I saw that too – My first thought was that it was a charter…
I’ve seen two flights recently that were even weirder. I’m a UA 1K with my home airport at ORD, so I’m pretty well aware of where UA flies to. A few weeks ago, I was picking up my outbound leg when I took a glance at the flight board at the gate next to mine. It was advertising this flight: ORD – RFD. Gee, this flight could have been handy when I lived in Rockford. Short drive to RFD, fly to ORD, take the Blue Line downtown. It might have been cheaper than the tolls on I-90.
Of course, UA does not fly into RFD. That’s Allegiant Land for scheduled flights.
Now it gets weirder. On Sunday, I was catching a flight to SEA that was suffused with weirdness. Due to “maintenance issues”, we were going to have to make a refueling stop at DEN. Because of this, my flight wasn’t listed on the big boards for some reason. A text message that, fortunately, I didn’t receive directed passengers to a gate in another concourse. This flight was pretty much cursed. Of course, neither SEA or DEN was listed on the gate displays. So what was?
ORD – MDW.
A flight taking off and landing in the same city.
Landing at an airport that UA left permanently in 1969.
What in the name of heaven is going on with UA and these semi-existing flights? Those two flights weren’t repositioning since UA has no service at the destination airports. Was there really UA metal headed from O’Hare to Rockford and the Southwest (captive hub) Side?
Very odd. Interesting observations.
One point I’ll make – do you remember in the TED days when United (briefly) returned to MDW?
Honestly, I forgot about TED flying their puddle-jumpers into Midway. I should have known this, since I grew up only a few miles from MDW and it’s the airport of my youth. I was living out of town during TED’s brief lifetime, though. And let’s be honest, how many people remember TED?
My husband was in the Newark Nightmare on Sunday the 26th. A 3 hour layover with United that was delayed 2 times for lack of crew and then hours later cancelled for weather. There was no weather. He was trying to get to VA Beach for our daughters Navy advancement pinning ceremony to surprise her. He was traveling from Oregon. The agents at the airport were no help, he needed to be at his destination by 1 pm the next day. I got on the phone with United and after an hour the agent found a flight I could not find from Newark to Richmond 2 hours from VA Bch. At 8 am the next morning. No hotels in Newark, no cots. He made it to surprise our daughter and pin on her crows with 30 minutes to spare. Return flight today through JFK, delayed layover again by 2 hours on Delta. Just got a text he is on the plane and cabin doors are shut. Fingers crossed he gets home tomorrow morning at the new scheduled time.
I saw a klm 747 land at ohare a couple of weeks ago. And could of sworn it wasn’t cargo.