I am novice to this group, but am about to get started on a job that'll involve weekly travel. Most destinations will be up and down the US Eastern seaboard and the MidWest, with occasional trips to the left coast and to South Asia. Living in Philly, US is an obvious choice, but the impending merger with UA is unsettling. Yes, the economy plus on UA is nice, but will they implement that on the acquired US planes? If so, how soon? US doesn't yet fly to South Asia. Plus, I've repeatedly encountered poor ground service on US. Sometimes, I get the feeling that the gate agents and ticketing agents just don't care if the planes goes out on time. There doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency that I see with other airlines, especially Delta.

CO is inconvenient for PHL pax. I don't want to think NW. That leaves AA and DL. I have been a longtime AA FF. No elite status, but a lot of scattered miles (250k+). MRTC is very tempting. I am not big on upgrades since I'd rather have the miles to redeem for free tickets. Roomy coach is good enough for me. BUT, AA just doesn't fly to those second tier towns in the Northeast, and if it does, I'd have to go through the mess at ORD. Yuk. Now if RDU were revived as an AA hub, I'd consider it. As of now, I can't.

That leaves DL. They fly to S Asia, are big in the East and their ACJet planes are very nice (flew one PHL-BOS on Mon). But the coach room is bad, and the old seats are too low and hurt my neck. Plus, the Elite benefits don't seem to matter much unless one is a PM. I might reach GM, but not PM. 100 segments are hard to do.

Any tips from the PHL folks on these boards would be really appreciated.

If you're based in PHL, go with US.

For the S. Asia part, only UA and NW have asian networks. AA can get you to 3 or 4 places, and CO can get you to 2 or 3, but they're not really anything that can be called a route network.

UA will impliment Plus seating on the US fleet if the buy out takes place. but it'll take a while.

Also, you can earn US miles when you fly NW to Asia, so you can use that for the asian trips.

Sounds like you have endured most maladies of airtravel. Guess what -- the East Coast is about as bad as it gets. The good news is that PHL is a nice airport, and fewer delays than most.

US for East Coast and transcontinental is about it, with some UA flights.

You might want to think about Amtrak for NE corridor travel.

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US is probably your best bet for PHL, even though you've had prior problems. It's hard to go against the hub airline if they can give you nonstops where the competition gives you connections.

One positive about US as compared to UA and AA is that there seem to be a smaller proportion of elite flyers to compete with for both quality coach seats and upgrades. I don't have hard facts about this, but having spent a year at Silver and a year at Gold with US, I rarely have difficulty getting either a bulkhead or exit row aisle (US will assign exit row to elite flyers qualified to sit there). And US provides upgrade certs more liberally then either UA or AA, so once you reach an elite level, you will get your share of flights up front.

I have no experience with Asia. However, the UA/US merger would seem to work in your favor here...