Consider that at the time Comair lost flight 5191 they were on Delta's Certificate of Insurance.

I'm not sure the contractual transfer of liability means a whole lot in the running of an alter ego air carrier. I'm not sure the risk means a whole lot to the contracting parties, as long as the exposure is properly managed. As the President of my former employer said "we consider safety a given." Delta obvious wants it's passengers to have a safe and enjoyable flight, but they have risk managers and trust that they have done their job(s). They don't stay up at night worrying about this.

Scary Mary finally admitted the obvious and now calls herself a "Plaintiff's Attorney." Her idea has a lot more with securing another potential source for financial recovery than it does air safety, IMHO. ... and in many venues, the parties in the chain of commerce with the airline service can be sued and in some places held liable jointly and severally. This is one reason Texas is a popular place to bring aviation litigation.

The Passenger Bill of Rights also provides some perspective on this. The issue of responsibility for passenger handling during IROPS was ill defined and left the contracting carrier with a significant potential for loss. Rather than absorb these costs, they tried to hold passengers on the airplane, overnight, as needed to save money. This led to litigation long before the government stepped up to the plate to "fix" the problem. Airlines (not just Delta) had ample time to develop and implement policies which would have stopped that legislation in its tracks. IMHO the government only got involved because we failed to use common sense in the management of our outsourced flying.

Cue the music, same song, second verse. When it comes to jacking up the house, ALPA's going to have to do their (our) own heavy lifting on outsourcing.