I don't see how Delta screwed them, Mesa screwed themselves. Your a contractor you go where they tell you to go, that is part of the contractor. The article read like JFK airport cancels the flights and that it isn't up to the particular airline to decide weather or not a flight will cancel or wait out the delay and operate.

MY CVG-DTW flight I was going to non-rev on was operated by Mesa and it was canceled for no good reasons (plane never made it to DTW). The worst thing is people thought it was a Comair flight and were *****ing about Comair. I'm calling my shot...I have 10 bucks the 3pm CVG-DTW flight on Mesa cancels on the 29th.