Delta whipsaws the regionals against each other when they do RFP's. When Delta bought ASA & Comair they thought they could control costs better if they owned their feed. As it turns out the Comair strike taught them that they do not want to have a concentration of any one company in any one hub and it is even more difficult to control the costs if they own the feed. If a regional gets struck they want to have other regionals already flying at that hub so the whole operation is not impacted and it is more difficult to identify struck work. They even have multiple regionals flying on the same routes now. If they squeeze Comair too much it deflates the value of Comair. They would prefer to have the capital cost of ownership in their treasury since it actually decreases their debt to equity ratio which should increase the stock price and they want Comair to have the highest value possible while they are trying to peddle it. Once Comair is cashed out (sold) they will be able to more effectively add Comair into the whipsaw fray and if Comair looses flying it won't effect Delta's bottom line.