Because the issue here is not the MX incidence rate but airlines' ability and willingness to offer recovery to the customer at minimum inconvenience, I just really, really disagree.

I'll give you another JetBlue irrops story. My family and I were flying BOS-JFK-SEA this August. Even though the website and concourse displays showed our BOS-JFK running on time, when we got to the gate we learned it was actually running two to three hours late (on a sunny, no-precip day; MX or other ops problem downlne). This naturally blew up many connections, including ours. My son and I were lucky to snag the last two seats on the BOS-SEA nonstop, but my wife had to stay over at the airport Hilton, fly the next day, miss a day or work, and arrived home 16 hours late.

The point is, there are about 25 other ways to fly from Boston to Seattle on a weekday afternoon, on about eight other airlines, and none of them were open to my wife. On a robust network carrier you almost always have multiple options within your own system. When an airline interlines you have many more. I can't tell you how infuriating it was to see the Alaska BOS-SEA nonstop taxi out with empty seats, while my wife retired to a $200 hotel room and resigned herself to missing a day's pay the next day, for which trouble JetBlue sent her a $50 voucher.

She represents permanently lost future businessto JetBlue -- as do, I think, the numerous business travelers at the podium in BOS who were stunned to hear the GA tell them they would be arriving in Houston or Vegas or wherever not at 1000pm tonight, but 4:45pm tomorrow... etc. All those people would no doubt readily conclude that as they really had to be at their destinations for meetings or events tomorrow, they should not have flown JetBlue at all.

And despite your post above, I think you might agree. According to your earlier post about the Perth-bound couple who missed their longhaul because of a JetBlue MX event, since they really had to be there, they had nobody to blame but themselves (for taking the published schedule at face value). Because irrops pax are at the mercy of B6 and must wait to be reaccommodated on the next available B6 flight, whenever it may be, anyone who must be somewhere has to weigh the risk of flying JetBlue very carefully.

I am off from SEA to BTV tomorrow. Because I really, really have to be in place for a Wednesday morning meeting, and can't risk getting there Wednesday night or Thursday, I am flying UA, much as I dislike the experience. That's not planning for the worst-case scenario. That's acknowledging the facts of everyday life at B6: when you are delayed, you can easily be really, really delayed.