[Mar 31, 2013] United Flight 123 - DEN-NRT (Denver, CO, 80249)

From Post 208 in the “787 Schedule Update” thread in the UA forum
http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/787-schedule-update.49050/page-9#post-1866233
comes this link, from which Bloomberg may’ve gotten their info, or vice versa :
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020373450_boeing787xml.html

Did you have luck changing the routing? I got no dice, but only one attempt.

Haven't tried yet - but will try when the 787 is no longer official on the DEN-NRT route. I'm on UA metal from IAH-DEN-NRT, so shouldn't be the biggest stretch to go IAH-NRT when the 787 is officially pulled. We'll see what happens though.....

"United Continental says it's removing Boeing 787 Dreamliners from it's schedule until March 30th."

Doubtful that they'll be up and running on March 31st.. Either the route will be delayed, or it will be flown with a 777 for a little while.

I'm betting the former.

Perhaps back in 2 months: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/business/boeing-to-propose-battery-fixes-to-faa.html?hp

Denver Post reporting that flight is delayed until 5/12/13.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingn...ing-denver-tokyo-flight-due-dreamliner-review

Poop. Time to talk to United...

And the May 12th flight - should it happen - won't be on the 787.

Just spoke with the 1k desk who does not yet know it cancelled....

Not too surprising. It takes a bit of time for this information to be pushed out to everyone.

The article says:

From that it sounds like they'll only do it with the 787...

The two bits of data are confusing. On the one hand, the plane is off the schedule until June 5. On the other, they expect to fly the route 3 weeks earlier. Something doesn't line up.

They did mention that if the fix is ready earlier, they will use 787 as needed. Perhaps they hope to get it back into service by May 12.

they did say (bolding mine): We are currently revising the route initiation date to May 12, although that will depend on having a successful resolution ahead of that date."

I'm wondering when they will actually cancel our reservations and provide us options, or if we'll just need to monitor our reservations and call in when they show cancelled.

With that uncertainty, what's everyone planning to do?

• Travel to NRT during the same dates from another city?
• Re-book on the new inaugural date (5/12 potentially)?
• Re-book on another date?

I'm leaning towards keeping the same date -- possibly departing a day earlier on 3/30 from IAD, EWR, or IAH. Also considering delaying this trip until Memorial Day weekend providing I can keep the B fare.

The schedule change should load this weekend. After that reaccommodation should be easier.

I'd like to do the new inaugural still. And I have reason to be in Colorado that weekend anyways. I may duck out of my other event a few hours early on Sunday morning and just head down to DEN, combining the two into one bigger event. At least that's how I'm going to handle the initial rebooking. I may try to get creative with the return routing, just for fun. I wonder if NRT-HNL-DEN would be permitted.

I'd also like to do the new inaugural, but 5/12 doesn't work for me . So it looks like I'll be either keeping the date or moving it elsewhere.

I'm trying to move the date to coincide with the Do going on in Tokyo that week. March dates work better for me than May dates, so I hope to just move it up a few days via IAH instead of DEN (and hopefully get back my positioning flight to DEN) and then be home in time to hunt Easter eggs. So, a bummer, but could work out better for me personally in the end anyway.

Though I most certainly want to keep my B fare.

Ideally I want #1 AND #2, and I'll happily pay the miles too. I just need them to open the availability.

I have too many other things attached to the trip, so I really still want to go. But I also would love to be on the inaugural on the new date.

I hear there will be a lot of bloggers in CO that weekend. Unrelated to that I may have reason to be in DEN that Sat anyway, so I'd be set for jumping on the new inaugural...as long as I don't have to pay something absurd to do so.

Figuring the aircraft change may be processing through the system by now, I just loaded up my res on United.com and was a bit surprised to see this:

(As an aside, the two GPUs I redeemed on this have not been redeposited. Also, looking at the receipt still appears to show the flight ticketed as normal.)

No flight segments shown in the record, either. I'm going to wait to call on this until I have a more organized plan of attack. I am partial to moving to the new inaugural (of the Dreamliner, not the route itself if they're going to fly it with a 777 or something).

Who is everyone planning to call regarding re-booking? I'm hoping the premier desk can take care of it, but I know when there were previous 787 cancellations, pax received a special number or a special team of reps who took care of this.

I'm just trying to avoid getting the runaround from agent after agent.

I just called in and did not get the result I was hoping for. They said they'd protect the B fare on another date from DEN-NRT, but NOT from another city on another date. I was hoping to get it moved to June on EWR-NRT, but that's a no-go apparently. Hopefully they'll provide a special / better number where the agents can do a little more for us.