Welcome to West Michigan, wizzy.

I've been a corporate travel manager in the GRR area for 30 years and also would be happy to answer any questions about business travel originating in the area.

Most road warriors in this region tend to favor NW/DL because they dominate the lift and have the majority of nonstop destinations. In the case of flight disruptions they also provide more options for on-line reschedule protects.

Connecting in DTW is preferred because during periods of major flight op disruptions it's an easy Plan B trip between GRR and DTW via land, tends to happen more often than we'd like to admit during the winter months. Most would prefer to have the ability to drive the rest of the way home as opposed to being stranded overnight at a distant hub.

For EWR, you also have back-up nonstop service to/from LGA, or in the case of regional hub meltdowns, at least the combined NW/DL will offer reschedule options via DCA, ATL, CVG, MEM, DTW or MSP.

The CO (Express Jet) nonstop service to EWR is handy but has a bad rap for delays and cancellations. And if the weather is bad in Michigan, it's often ditto for CLE, their only online protect option for connections.

SkiAdcock is correct in that there really aren't any secret shortcuts for security. There are only two check points, one for each of the concourses (A & B) which only have 6 gates each, mostly serving regional jets, so long delays negotiating security are rare.

The major taxi companies in GRR do take credit cards and cabs are readily available during most of the day. I'd say it would only be necessary to consider pre-arranging a cab in the case of a very late arrival. Even then, a quick call to a cab company upon arrival would result in the arrival of a cab pretty quickly. The city is pretty compact and getting to the airport from more urbanized areas is a breeze.