[Butch Cassidy Slept Here]

If Continental want to protect their brand, they need to be sure that the standards on their franchisees or contractors are the same, including customer interface roles. Most McDonald's are franchises, but they have built their empire on providing a predicatable level of service and product no matter where you go.

Of course, this pre-supposes that the "brand" of many US airlines is actually worth anything these days.

For what it's worth I think most US-based airlines have policies to try to ensure "consistency" between mainline service and commuter. In practice I don't think such policies have been observed since deregulation (circa 1975). The incident where a mother, and her 6-year old son, (who wouldn't stop saying "bye-bye plane") were kicked-off a Continental flight in Houston occured on a Continental Express flight operated by Express Jet Airlines. Whether the same thing could have happened on a mainline flight? Who knows?

In another example, the check-in staff at a United code-share carrier, south of my home, consists entirely of high school kids working the early morning flight before school starts. They're polite. But they don't seem that efficient, and they don't inspire confidence.