Piedmont is nostalgic for me primarily because it was my first flight, when I was 6 or 7. I seem to remember my family had seats that faced each other, with a table in between. We felt special because it was the only such seating arrangement on the plane.

I never flew Piedmont at an age where I was competent to judge its value as an airline, but I do remember they had a record of zero crashes, and that it was within days of the USAir takeover that a Piedmont-painted plane ran off the end of a runway at Charlotte (nobody seriously injured, but the fairly minor-looking crimp in the front fuselage reportedly totaled the plane).

I also remember going out to the airport when I lived in Charlotte to greet the last Piedmont flight, from Wilmington, NC (which, coincidentally, was my destination on my first flight). What struck me as particularly sad was that the people getting off the plane and the gate staff all seemed to treat it as just another flight.