I understand that 9xxx flights are generally ferries without passengers. As far as I know, UA doesn’t normally fly a 747 out of DEN, does anyone know the eventual purpose of this aircraft? Is there a way to figure out the tail number and see what it is scheduled to do in the future?
I also noticed that UA714 from SFO to DEN is not scheduled for today, has this flight been canceled or discontinued? Maybe the 747 is going to be used for whatever flight the 714 aircraft would be used for out of DEN.
Nice of you to actually post a link to the flight. As an FYI, the link you posted is a “live” link meaning it will link to whatever flight is current at the time it is clicked by a user. Today it’s a 747, tomorrow it might be a 737. If you click on the date of the flight in from the list of flights at the bottom of the page, the URL will change to the specific flight. You can then copy-n-paste that URL into your posted messages.
There’s no realtime info on tail numbers for specific flights. If you click on the following link in a couple days, and then use your browser’s “Find On This Page” function to search on the flight number (UA9787), you’ve got a pretty good shot at finding out the tail number. The link will not work for a couple of days as the report that is currently linked has not yet been generated.
Looks as is they have it scheduled for 938 to ORD, which continues on to London Heathrow (at least on paper). It’s set up for UAL 938T late this afternoon.
Must be a really good special on fish and chips tomorrow.
I see UA 714 has been canceled. This must be a replacement aircraft for the leg to ORD.
This brings up something else I have been wondering. Can an airline cancel a flight because of lack of passengers? Let’s say for example that 714 only had a handful of people today, and they were easily accommodated on other flights. This cancellation was determined very early and a replacement aircraft scheduled. Is this common?
An airline will not cancel a flight because of lack of passengers unless of course other factors enter into the equation like weather or mechanical problems and it might be better suited. The flights that are usually cancelled first when weather hits an airline’s hub are the late night flights that have low load factors and are just round-trip (to a spoke and back to the same hub i.e. ATL-DAY-ATL, OMA-ORD-OMA).
Alright now I’m really confused… you were right, that aircraft was used for UA938… sort of. If you look up 938, it lists it as scheduled for a 757. If you look up 938T (see below)
Are you saying we might go a little rough on newbies?!?!? LOL!!
Welcome marklar. To answer your question, a flight such as the one you listed might go to say IAD, ORD…and continue accross the pond. As it is airborne the flight for the next day will launch and they will put a letter after the flight number for dispatch purposes to distinguish one flight from the other. Now I’m sure your next question might be “Well wouldn’t they be able to tell one aircraft type from another?” To that I’d say yes, but when a dispatcher is sitting at a computer looking at a screen full of flights he’s looking at flight numbers. Hope this helps, and for the record as long as you have read a bit in the faq area, or at least read some of the threads before posting, I’m sure you will really have fun in these forums. 8)
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