How to succeed in business without really trying, the airline way

The universe tends toward entropy and chaos. Things are gonna break. So I don't begrudge JetBlue the mechanical problem that resulted in my Rochester/JFK flight this a.m. being delayed and delayed until the point that there was no way I was going to make my connecting flight to Phoenix and Reynolds Business Journalism Week.
But it's a sweet bit of irony that JetBlue still made a bit of profit off me for actually never flying me anywhere. When it became clear we'd not take off until too late to make my connecting flight, I went to the helpful ticketing folks. The other JetBlue flight to Phoenix today was booked solid, so they looked at other airlines. And Delta was able to squeeze me in. And as I stood at the Delta desk at Greater Rochester International Airport, the (again) very helpful JetBlue folks wrote out a check to Delta, buying me one-way airfare to Phoenix by way of Atlanta. $217 and change.
The hoot, however, was the fact that I paid close to $600 roundtrip to JetBlue for my Phoenix airfare. Meaning that even after spending $217 to send me one way to Phoenix, JetBlue still cleared, what, $70 or so. For not flying me anywhere. Sure, they had expenses of staff time and mechanical repairs associated with the breakdown, but that's the cost of doing business and thus should be built into the ticket.
So JetBlue shareholders owe me a bit of thanks for fattening the airline's bottom line. You're welcome.