What's your favorite airline?

[jay_the_pilot]

I just wondered what everybody's favorite airline is.  Personally, I like Southwest Airlines.  Here's why:
I can fly Southwest to points either east or west or north or south from one of the three airports in my vicinity, Albuqerque, Lubbock, and Amarillo.  On other airlines such as Continental, one must fly to Houston first, no matter where your headed.  In addition to that being a waste of time, Intercontinental airport is a major pain to get around in.

Southwest is cheap.  I can always get a cheaper fare on Southwest than on any other airline.

Southwest is fun.  I'm sure everyone has heard the stories, flight attendants popping out of overhead bins, singing the emergency procedure instructions, etc.  The employees at Southwest are friendly and actually care about my travel experience.

Southwest only opperates 737s, which always have big seats (as compared with the commuters the other airlines fly to feed into their hubs).  Also, you can choose where you want to sit, so I can always get a wing seat and see the flaps and stuff.  8)

Southwest is run by an excellent CEO.  Herb Kelleher has arm wrestled an other CEO for slogan rights,  works every Thanksgiving alongside the baggage handlers, and claims that his employees made him CEO because he couldn't do any other meaningful task.  He has also succeeded in keeping the airline profitable for 25+ consecutive years, even during these post 9/11 times of trouble.

Southwest is safe.  In over 30 years of flying, Southwest has 1 little blemmish on its safety record, when in 2000 the pilot ran the plane through the fence and across the street.  They linked it to pilot error, so there's nothing wrong with the planes.

Southwest painted one of their airplanes like the New Mexico (state I live in) flag.  They are some of the only people besides New Mexicans that know that New Mexico is actually a state.  Okay, this reason is kinda silly, but if you spent the time to read all of that, you could read a silly reason too.

[Tchkinjiu]

Wow, heck of an explanation for that.
I like America West.

1. I love the paint scheme
2. They have T.Vs
3. Last time I flew them, they were very confortable and had no problems the whole flight. PERFECT landing at San Fransisco. Well, that was the pilot, but you get it.

[ChuckMajik]

Westjet, the only airline I've flown on.
I Guess that's somewhat biased, but what can you do.

[Pinchaser...]

Anagnos, I have to agree with you. The last time I flew America West to and back from Phoenix, they were great. I usually fly American, and they're good, but America West gets my vote. They do need to work on the leg room issue though.

[Craig.]

northwest airlines.
few reasons, 1: DC10, last real opportunity to fly that plane.
2: Detroit world gateway, the best terminal in america one of the best in the world.
3: I will never fly an LCC. or US airways lol

[ozzy72]

Quantas and Malev, both give exceptional service!

[Craig.]

there is no U in qantas arggghhh LOL

[Hagar]

Singapore Airlines is the best airline I've ever experienced by a long chalk. This was a business trip & I didn't have to pay for the ticket. On private trips I don't recall having a choice of airline & price would be a big factor for me. I'm not made of money & book the cheapest ticket for where I wish to go on a particular day. My least favourite airlines are BA & Virgin. I was not impressed despite my lovely niece being cabin crew for Virgin.

[Hagar]

there is no U in qantas arggghhh LOL

Good one Craig. This does not set a good example & I expect better from our resident English teacher.
Ozzy. Write out 500 times "I must try harder".

PS. Being a pedantic old soul I should point out that it's QANTAS - in upper case.

PPS. Aren't you glad I never became a teacher? I suspect that most of my students would hate me.

[Nexus]

Good question, let's see.

Lufthansa comes to mind, I've been flying with them quite much, and they have invited me to the flight deck both in their A321 and B737-500, so there's no way I can leave them out.  ;D

Northwest didn't inpress me much (sorry Craigy), I rode on their 744's over the altantic when I lived in the States, however their subsidiary Mesaba (Northwest Airlink) was a great experience. Nice crew, and a swedish aircraft (SAAB 340)  ;D

KLM are cool, but much because of the aircrafts :
First ride on a Jumbo was with them, flying on a 777 which were about 3 weeks old and of course they operate 737's daily from my town to AMS Schiphol  :)

And then we have SAS, the joint venture between Sweden Norway and Denmark. Pure quality, but they are on the total opposite scale of SWA for example. No funny crew whatsoever, This is an airline strictly for dull businessmen  ::)
Have flown on every aircraft on their fleet except their A330/340 which they ordered to replace the 767's  :P

So here's the deal.
1. Lufthansa
2. KLM
3. SAS
4. Mesaba
5. Scanair (defunct SAS charter flight airline, I flew on their DC10's to Mallorca every summer from 1991-1994)

[Craig.]

well it would have been good advice to check your seat for pins before you sat down Doug

Nexus, i dont know why i like northwest as much as i do, i have flown 8 flights with them and only 2 have been on time both of those being return transatlantic flights. Just something about them. KLM i wasnt a huge fan of theres, the service was at best sloppy and the leg room horrible.

[Nexus]

Don't know how many NWA flights I took during my years 'overthere'. I had a discount with them so I took monthly flights to Canada and New York from Detroit Metro. I don't know about you, but it's a helluva walk from the KLM/NWA european arrival terminal to the regional transit hall where I took the NWA airlinks to Ohio.

Lots of bad language coming from Nexus' mouth when he had to run just to catch the regional flight  ;D

PS: I just wished I could ride on a TriStar, but the odds aren't really getting better. Air Transat comes to mind...

[Craig.]

that was the old terminals, horrible dank smelly and falling to pieces, the world gateway is an amazing terminal, very easy with a cool tram that floats on air for transport from one end to the other, of course it had only been open a few days when i went through there and the tram wasnt working::) but still awsome

[Nexus]

wow cool...I flew from and to Detroit Metro in 1999-2000 period so I guess it wasn't built then  8)

[Craig.]

opened in 2001 feb21st i think.
you would have gone through the smith and berry terminals, the smith terminal is over 40 years old and berry 26 i believe. After going through them i promised never to go through Detroit again, then i heard about the world gateway and i am glad i gave it a second chance. They are thankfully demolishing the smith/berry terminals and building a new one to open in 2008 thats meant to rival the world gateway in terms of convience but will be a little smaller, they are rebuilding part of the gateway to make it bigger, And Detroit is on its way to being one of the best airports in the world.