"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.