It's never been a good thing, other than maybe slightly higher non-rev priority on mainline. They're still subject to competitive pressures in the regional industry. In addition to that, wholly-owned regionals can serve as "capacity accumulators" when mainline needs to quickly adjust it's regional fleet...the non-owned regionals all have contracts with cancellation penalties.

The phrase "being owned by DAL means everything" is an ironic joke in the industry.

Except the Pan Am guys can say they flew for a legendary legacy airline for a little while before BK liquidation...that would be cool, to have a model of a Pan Am 727 on your bookcase.