I wouldn't take *this* as a sign (although there are clearly other signs). what they rebook onto depends on witch whom they have decent reprotection agreements. For years, AB has been rebooking me because of misconnects and cancellations. If found them reasonably good in this. In all but one cases I was rebooked to *A airline. The one case when they rebooked me onto another AB flight, this was because there was no more flights on the same day available (even with *A).