During my recent hellish round-the-world adventure, I experienced lots of long flight delays and cancellations. What a trip!

On my way to Singapore from the USA, my flight was canceled and I was forced to sit in an airport motel for three days before I could continue my flight to Asia. The trouble was most of the flights were full and once the flight cancellation occurred the airline now had 400 angry passengers that needed a new reservation to their destination. I was forced to wait for three days because the flights to Asia in the near future were full.

While frustrating, I found the entire rebooking process to be a fascinating exercise in customer service and logistics. Here are my questions:

1) Is it likely I was forced to wait for three days because I had no frequent flyer status and paid a very low basic economy fare?

2) If someone was rebooked on a partner airline after their international flight was canceled will they be guaranteed a seat in the same fare class? (For example, if they paid for an economy preferred or business class seat would they get that on the partner airline they were forced to use due to the original flight cancellation?)

3) Does the partner airline get paid by the airline who canceled the flight to put a passenger on their plane?

4) If the canceled flight was non-stop and the passenger was forced to go to their final destination via a long route with stops, will there be some type of settlement or payment to the passenger? (For example, if the passenger was scheduled to fly non-stop from the USA to Singapore non-stop but that flight was canceled and they were transferred to a flight on another airline that gets them to Singapore eventually but involved two stops and a 24-hour odyssey.