The spare aircraft as well as the hub status, DL staff, and lounges are real advantages of flying through NRT. I also love doing customs at home so that I don't have to worry about delays causing missed connections.

I'm not sure whether DL needs an agent in each lounge or a dedicated elite line downstairs in each satellite's transfer desk, but something should be done to bring SkyPriority beyond the check in area (which IME needs lots of work at NRT--I've been having frustrating experiences with their BE check in area and it should be very simple to get it right).

For gate requests, why can't DL follow the SkyPriority SOP and have a separate elite line to be served first? This would ease the pain in general when one must see a GA.

My big complaint with NRT, for which I have not forgiven them, was one time when my plane had a bad mechanical out of SIN. I called Chisholm from the plane and rebooked on the flights I wanted with the seat assignments I wanted only to have the ground staff in NRT rebook my using totally different connections. Weather in the US, which would not have affected my routing if they hadn't messed with it, caused me to arrive home at 3 am. Not a nice way to treat a top-tier elite (plus MM) on a paid WBC/BE ticket.