Favorite Airline 2024

I'm kind of locked in to Delta since I have a Delta Airlines AMEX. I do enjoy free access to the Delta Sky Lounges. My only beef with Delta sky Miles is I just booked a trip for 4 people to Ireland this July, and I can only gain sky miles is on my personal ticket even though I just paid for 4. But I often get free upgrades to business class from coach. I have used my sky miles to upgrade to 1st class. Problem is you have to get the timing correct, or you get gouged.

 

Whichever gets me there on the time I want, direct flight, assigned seating and a carryon with no bullshit charges. It's not that I can't afford the carryon charge, it's just that I'd prefer the price just be worked into the cost. Stop nickel and diming me to my face. It's like a store charging me extra or having a minimum to use a credit card. Or a Mexican restaurant charging me for more tortillas. Just work the pricing in to your costs.

Side note- I avoid CCs with airline or hotel points just for the 'locked in' reasons cited above. I'll just take straight cash back.

 

Southwest or United. Spirit is the absolute worst which I'm sure everyone knows. Had to fly it to go to the Tigers -Giants WS and I thought we were going to die. Never again

 

For West Coast and Pacific Rim flights, Alaska is the way to go.

 

They're banned in the south now.

 

I'm stuck with Delta too as they have a stranglehold on MSP. I agree that they are the best of a bad lot and with a lot of the other comments here. They've invested a lot into MSP and in 20 years MSP has grown from a very plain smaller airport to a big hub and one of the better airports int he US.

US Airline service though is terrible compared to many foreign carriers and if I can help it when I fly overseas I try to fly a non-US carrier. One thing I've noticed though is many foreign carriers are adopting the same practices as US carriers with fees fees FEES for all sorts of small stuff that used to be included. I flew Air France recently and was pissed to see them charging 15 Euro just to choose an economy seat.

 

Any time we fly, I always say I'm going to try someone other than United but I always end up going with them. I live 20 minutes away from their hub and we have free access to their lounge, so that helps. But I always find their self check-in lines move quickly and there's always someone there to help the people who don't know what they're doing. Their app is very useful and I've honestly never had a bad customer service experience with them.

I know I'm supposed to hate them like everyone else, but I don't.

My wife flew Spirit on a girls trip to Vegas last year and someone sprayed graffiti in the bathroom. The FA's got really pissed and basically tried to hold the entire plane hostage until the person who did it confessed. Good times.

 

I have been sucked into the perks on United, I travel 15-20 times per year for work, so I like the familiarity with the program and have paid slightly higher fees by justifying "no cost for luggage" which is a bit of a stretch but I want my miles..............its almost like a game at this point

 

I like frontier. It feels like a bus

 

Some of yall only fly once a year to Disney and it shows.

Mixing up Airlines, Airplanes and Airports.......SMH.

 

Seat fees (and other types of fees) are universal now. Every airline globally charges seat fees. Interestingly, Delta is better than most airlines on this front because regular economy fares still get free seat selection whereas their European JV partners (Air France, Virgin Atlantic and KLM) charge seat fees on regular fares.

There really isn't that much that sets foreign airlines apart from US ones these days. There are some nice soft product components and business class on some foreign airlines tends to be better but the gap between airlines has shrunk dramatically. They've all shifted in the same direction in terms of hard and soft product and pricing structure.

 

You had to mention the Denver Airport. You had...to...m-m-men.....RAAAAAAAAAAAALPH.......

 

That's crazy talk. How can you not like Hobby considering the **** show that is Bush airport? That international terminal is an embarrassment.

 

ive never waited more the 5 minutes to get through security. Plus its way closer than Bush. If I'm flying to Houston, its ALWAYS Hobby

My Worst airport on the planet awart goes to Denver, my local airport and the one I most frequent. It a complete disaster

 

In terms of fees yes most of the foreign carriers have copied US carriers but I still think there is difference in comfort and service. Last year I flew delta from MSP to SFO and then EVA from SFO to HK and the difference was noticeable. The food in EVA economy tasted better than the food even in Delta first class.

 

I go out of my way to avoid Denver, when I lived In Omaha, I had to always connect through Denver..............if I never see that airport again, I will be happy

 

For food and catering, you have to compare like for like. An international flight from SFO has entirely different catering than the domestic MSP-SFO flight. The fair comparison to the EVA Air flight is a Transpacific Delta flight. But even then, EVA almost certainly has the better catering (although the difference in quality wouldn't be anywhere near as drastic). Catering for domestic flights has and will continue to be awful for all US carriers. There's no question that if you compare a meal on a domestic flight in the US to a comparable economy meal on a domestic flight in Asia, the Asian meal will win every single time. But quality international flights aren't quite as lopsided.

Also, catering varies wildly based on the origin and destination. EVA might even be doing round trip catering (where both the flight to SFO and the return use the same catering from Taipei) so in EVA's case you might be getting Taiwanese catering in both directions while Delta's catering would vary. For example, a Delta flight from the West coast to Japan or Korea can have US catering in one direction and local catering on the way back (since Delta has local Japanese catering in Tokyo and it uses Korean Air's catering in Seoul).

Anyway, lots of unique logistical quirks with catering. The interesting thing with catering is now that US carriers have joint ventures in every direction, they all share local catering in Europe and Asia. The days of really awful American sourced catering for international flights are really over now with advances in catering operations and the sharing of catering operations with JV partners.

 

How does one recognize a pilot when in a room.

Spoiler

Don't need to, he'll tell you.