simply: NWA is always the cheapest flight from Nairobi to TVC Michigan, but these upgrades and AMS as a rockin' airport certainly helps things out.

I fly because I after my first book was published, I started receiving regular invitations to speak at conferences and other events--and Montana is just WAY too far away from everything to do anything other than fly.

I flly NWA because even as a lowly Silver, I'm upgraded on 90% of my flights ... and as a PE, I'm always upgraded. (Plus, I love to upgrade friends or even strangers at the gate.)

I also fly NWA because our ground crew in BIL is fantastic. (The manager stayed on after all of the long-time employees were let go.) He has trained his new team well too and they always take great care of their frequent flyers.

(Thanks for the non-hostile thread! :) )

I fly NWA, beacuse it is the lesser of evils. I fly just about everyday. I live in Nashville, so I have to connect to most places, or fly SWA. ATL, ORD every night are not fun. I like prefer to connect through MEM, only because it is smaller and faster then DTW. DTW is a nice airport, but the taxis are starting to get long. ATL & ORD I would not get to enough places as I am in meetings or onsite for at most a day or two and then go to another client.

Purely practical.
 

I fly because it's basically the only sensible way to get between the island I live on and anywhere else in the world.

I fly NW because they give me:

• Treatment at least as good as I can expect (usually better).
• Especially good treatment as an elite living in Hawaii.
• CO as a closely-integrated backup option. :)
• Nonstop partner flights places like EWR-EDI and AMS-EBB.
• MSP, DTW and AMS.

I fly NW because they don't give me:

• TATL mileage runarounds (AA/BA).
• AQ as an inter-island partner in Hawaii (UA).
• ORD (AA/UA) or LHR (BA).
• Utter panic at the first snowflake (UA).
• All cattle car, all the time (FF).

I travel 95% for work but as others have said, I really do enjoy the act of traveling itself. My position is truly a Global one with responsibilities in the US (BOS, MSN and SFO) Europe (IRE and AMS) and Asia (JP and HKG) and NW is the best choice for those destinations. I live in the BOS area and can get to AMS direct and work often out of one of my companys CA offices (mostly the Bay area) and love the service to Asia NW provides there. Commuting from BOS to SFO is also nice on NW with DTW and MSP being great hubs. Of course, the free UG's on every trans-con is the reason I fly them domestically. NW has a pretty good set of hooks in this traveler.

I fly NWA because DTW is the nearest airport and NW has the most non-stops flights to the places I need to travel to in North America. So if there is a non-stop that is not operated by a DC9, I choose NW. For TATL I enjoy to fly LH C or some *A alternative due to corporate contracts.

DTW's NW terminal is great. I get to use the NW club thru my Amex Plat and that is nice too. With the DTW north terminal coming up next summer things should improve there too. I know for sure the LH lounge is moving there and UA/US/AC will set up a joint *A lounge/club too which I should have no problems getting in there with my LH*G ;)

Because I can't walk on water...at least not yet.

NW World Perks Program is the Best!
 

My entire family fly NW 100% of the time. We especially like the upgrade program and make extra trips to maintain status. Without that it would be price, price, price, on a minimum of trips.

80% of my flying is for Biz. I go and visit clients in US frequently.

The reasons for NW:
1. Gotten use to the system - knowing what to expect, little surprises (believe my, there will be new surprises under the sun)
2. Miles, 125% bonus is hard to reject! Usable or not is another issue :-(
3. Lack for love from Grandma! Sorry, can't resist on this one :-)

Force of habit. I have a lot of family in Minnesota and I grew up flying NW. Now, half of the flying I do is to Asia and I really never thought of flying on a different airline. So far NW hasn’t given me a reason to court other airlines.

When I moved back to Detroit from the West coast I had Gold status on AA, and because of our travel policy (cheapest flight) I kept flying AA for a while. I finally convinced someone that 3 hours in the Admirals club in Chicago wasn't that bad for me, but was a stupid way to get to Pittsburg. I've since made GE on NW based on segments.

I like the fact that I can get to Monday morning meetings at our offices around the NE US from Detroit without Sunday travel.

I like the fact that I can get my breakfast at the WC on my way to the morning meetings and get free Wi-Fi to check my e-mail.

I like the fact that status matters on NW, I get upgraded more often than not.

I like the fact that the WC partners offer me a club at most of the major airports.

I like the fact that I can get Fat Tire on tap at the Delta club in Denver.

Because nothing makes me happier than boarding a red-tail CRJ!

after seeing the majority of them you might never go either :D on your next flight as a FA what the FA's stereotype of a Seattle based FA is...

And you still maintain NW Platinum? :-:

I started flying NWA almost exclusively in 2003, when I could no longer stand UA. Most of my work trips are international: Both to Asia and to Europe. I travel a lot domestically, but mostly for personal reasons.

It was great in 2003-2004. I could upgrade any international itinerary I wanted and got EUA domestically 100% of the time. In 2005, when the EUA started to drop off, I discovered how pitifully awful NWA Y is. I started flying most CO domestically, but the EUA's aren't there.

My current harmony is that I use NW for the international trips and CO for domestic. I have Plat on both, but believe that WP is a much better program than OP. Fortunately this year, I've been able to upgrade most of the CO domestic trips with miles.

At the risk of ruining the lovefest, yesterday--for the first time since July 2003--I purchased a ticket on a carrier different from NW/KLM for an upcoming international trip. I am just so tired of the management-labor BS.