mrwunrfl

My coworker was planning to fly SAN-EWR-BZE today. EWR-BZE for tomorrow morning is already cancelled and I am looking for alternatives.

United's website allows you to put in a flight number to check flight status. It shows the tail number for the plane and tells you where it is coming from. You can track it back from there to find out where that tail number is at now.

An award seat is available this afternoon for SAN-IAH. Overnight at IAH. Continue on to BZE tomorrow morning. This is all "on schedule" but I am trying to determine how the weather back east could affect it.

The plane for the 3:09 PM SAN-IAH flight is in the air, traveling BDL-ORD-SAN. I think that means that she can make it to Houston today.

Tomorrow, there are two IAH-BZE flights: 1407 and 1408.

The plane used for 1407 tomorrow is on schedule (2:40 PM from EWR) and will travel EWR-CLE-IAH.

The tail number for 1408 to BZE tomorrow is in the air now and will travel IAH-YYC-IAH-OKC-IAH-BZE.

The plane used for tomorrow's UA 1408, IAH-BZE, is not going be going anywhere near the weather back east, so it can follow its schedule. The other plane might leave EWR on time today and continue on to IAH.

But, I guess the crew for that flight isn't going to be on the same plane, so there might not be a crew (if they were coming from EWR on a different plane/flight, e.g.). I saw that one of the BZE flight numbers (not tail numbers) was coming from MSY to IAH, but I guess that the crew for 140x from MSY-IAH would not necessarily be the same crew for IAH-BZE.

DonTopaz

I hope you explained this to your co-worker, exactly as you explained it to us, and that you took notice of the stultifyingly clueless expression that overcame his/her face.

mrwunrfl

No, she is on her own. There would have been no change in her expression. Am not sure if any explanation I could give would change yours.

I think I answered my own question by the time I finished the post: the feature at United dot com allowing you to see where where a plane is coming from is of limited use in determining whether your flight, using that plane, is going to be on time.

I could have told her that she could get to Houston this afternoon, but could not tell her that she could get from Houston to Belize tomorrow morning. The plane she would fly to BZE isn't in the mess back East, but FAIK the mess could affect that flight. So I left it between her and United.

rkkwan

It is useful for flying from an out station, but not from a hub since there can be multiple changes and substitution.

mrwunrfl

SAN-IAH arrived 5 minutes early.

The EWR-CLE-IAH plane is now at IAH and available for IAH-BZE tomorrow.

The IAH-YYC-IAH-OKC plane is now in OKC and available to depart tomorrow morning to IAH and go on from there to BZE.

I imagine that the worst that could happen would be that both of those planes are used on different routes tomorrow morning and that there is no substitute at IAH available to fly to BZE for either flight.