[californiaguy]

Wait, so... this tells me that my flight is "probably" delayed?

What if I take that as gospel and show up to the airport late or otherwise make plans based on that data and then it turns out it wasn't actually delayed?

Isn't the equilibrium action for me to show up at the airport on time no matter what?

[physio]

Agreed; this is fairly useless on its own. However, the TC blurb says:

"In the future, the company plans to offer a list of alternative flights so you can quickly rebook once you learn of a delay."

I think the real application of this is going to be purchasing fully-refundable tickets, then switching an 85%-likely-delayed flight for an 85%-likely-on-time flight, for a 72% chance of making the right call.

If enough people do this, airlines are going to end up cancelling entire flights when everyone switches their tickets. This will mean they either A) offer cheaper flights on the cancelled-then-rebooked "new" flight for anyone who might need it, B) offer discounts if you DON'T cancel, or C) raise the prices of refundable tickets so high that you will go to another carrier at the outset.

Better information for customers inevitably leads to more competition and lower prices.

Of course airlines are barely surviving as it is, so this kind of thing would (eventually) kill off some number of stragglers.

On an editorial note, I say good riddance. As far as I'm concerned, the entire airline industry can go out of business for not standing up for their customers. I don't want to be physically molested or scanned naked, deal with "freedom baggies", a lack of water, taking off my shoes (note in other public venues you MUST wear shoes due to health codes), power-tripping morons, people rifling through my luggage, stuff stolen out of my luggage, late luggage, damaged luggage, "lost" luggage, showing my ID, showing my ID to 3 different people, mission creep leading to arrests for NON-safety-related issues, "behavior detection" specialists looking to harass nervous and/or agitated individuals, "no fly lists", quasi-police-powers bestowed upon flight attendants so "interfering with a flight crew", e.g. arguing with a stewardess, is now a federal crime; a hundred other things, all capped off by secret laws which heretofore had always been held to be unconstitutional, but now we aren't allowed to know what the laws are, pertaining to aviation security.

Finally, if you want to know if a given flight will be late, the answer "yes" also works about 85% of the time.

[greyboy]

If enough people do this, airlines are going to end up cancelling entire flights when everyone switches their tickets.

With a family member who spent many years working for a large carrier, this isn't how the airline industry works (in America, and I assume many other nations). Flights are almost never cancelled except due to mechanical failure, crew fatigue, or inclement weather. The reason being, that same plane taking you from NYC to SFO is also the plane that 130 people are waiting for in SFO to SEA. So, whether it is 100% full or only has 2 people, it still makes the trip. Have you ever been on a plane with only 2 passengers aboard? I have - and you can pick any seat you want! They will even send an empty plane out (with crew, of course).

C) raise the prices of refundable tickets so high that you will go to another carrier at the outset.

Refundable tickets are already that high - almost nobody buys them. They are already 3-5x as high as your average discount ticket and almost solely purchased by business travellers or foreigners who need that flexibility. The 99% of cow-herded casual travellers buy the bottom-of-the-barrel discount tickets, usually from Travelocity and the like, with the most restrictions. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing unless there is a massive uprooting of the current airline industry.

[californiaguy]

Armed with this info, why would I ever buy an 85% late flight to begin with?

... I think I answered my own original question.

But wait, if historically delayed flights were delayed because of the high passenger loads and congestion effect of peak times and routes, if everyone were armed with the same historical information, would the new passenger distribution "stampede" to historically non-delayed routes, thus causing those to be delayed, or would the distribution normalize over time to help congestion overall?

I guess we'll see.