I think this is a very rational statement to make. All the employees all over the system are intentionally providing sub-standard customer service because that's sure to be the philosophy of the new carrier.

Snark aside, there's a host of factors at play and you possibly mis-connecting is only one small component. As another poster mentioned, EWR's operations were significantly impacted yesterday by the rough weather. This strained the operations of the airport all day and created a lot of mis-connects. Someone, somewhere made the decision that they wanted to maintain the slot for the flight you were trying to connect to at the risk of not letting you on.

How did they come to that conclusion? Who knows.

Was it down out of laziness or maliciousness due to the merger? I have no idea, but common sense seems to discount that reason considerably. (rah! rah!)

I've had flights held for me by CO during tight connections (and one time was even escorted to the RJ across the tarmac once the plane had begun its push ). And I've watched planes push as I'm standing at the gate.

It happens. It's part of traveling. Yes, it sucks. But, more often than not, so does traveling on any day that ends in "y" through or via the most congested airspace in the country.

Just be thankful you didn't have to schlep all the way over to A from C only to watch your plane push in front of you.