Originally Posted by
ty97
Frequency is not necessarily they key. If AA/UA serve a route 5/times a day, but all 5 flights are full, if one of them cancels, you still don't have a seat on one of the non-stops.
As has been discussed in the other thread, the difference for some other airlines is that they have multiple routing possiblities, so if you are going JFK-LGB, for example, they could re-route you through Chicago or Dallas. Jetblue does not have that.
Just last weekend I was flying UA on BOS-DEN-BOS. The previous DEN-BOS on Sunday canceled on a day when most of the loads were showing Y7 or so on that route. I expected a bit of chaos at the gate (and maybe a bump fest!) but found no such thing. There were no throngs of people milling about the gate and eventually most stand-by's were boarded, though maybe not all. Apparently the excess capacity of the network was able to absorb a nearly full 757 on the penultimate flight of the day -- and on an O/D route no less (convince me that a flight getting in at 11PM local has people making connections!) So no, it's not a guaranteed seat on a non-stop, but it's a decent chance of getting you to your destination.
So it's partially about the hubs as you say, but also about frequency, and of course loads. JetBlue does have two east coast hubs (albeit with highly correlated weather) but often the way they schedule the flights (both leaving at the same time for instance) can preclude pax from rerouting via the other.