There's an interesting big picture item in play here though. Despite most of the majors (well, ALL with the exception of CAL) giving up scope, they didn't completely give away the farm on "large" (ie, bigger than 50) "small jet" flying. It normally has to do with a percentage based on the total number of mainline aircraft and then for every aircraft over that they can add X number of LSJs. I don't know the numbers in the Delta system, but over at Airways, there are currently 23 too many LSJs running around the system Of course with USAPA playing catch up (and worrying mostly about the seniority integration) up until now not much has been done about it. However, they recently filed a grievance against the company about it.
That's the back story. Here's the interesting part. Airways can't add any more LSJs to the system unless they buy more planes for mainline first (or they get them to concede more scope). If they park 50 seaters because they aren't profitible, they can't replace them with anything except mainline metal. So one of two three things happens. Either they really need to keep those long thin routes open so they keep the 50 seaters around to fly them. The dump the 50 seaters and put mainline aircraft back on the routes. Or they dump the 50 seaters and shut the route down. With the industry being as competative as it is, most airlines will only close a route that is a complete was of time and many of these thin routes, while not able to support a 737 do provide a large amount of connection traffic into the hub. So that leaves the options of either throwing bigger airframes, crewed by mainline, on the route or leaving the "money losing" 50 seater on it.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
As far as CMR? Who knows. At one point in time being wholly owned meant everything. Now it means next to nothing except you can't go bid on another company's feed to diversify your portfolio.