Remember too that in most people's minds the air travel experience has come to be measured curbside to curbside, not jetway to jetway. Much of the time we're frazzled by the airside security dance and other ancillary hassles long before checking in or buckling our belts. It might well be the airport talking. As one reader puts it:

"The in-flight experience is pretty much the same on every airline, and it's always overshadowed by the abuse we take in the terminal building."

Southwest reaps the psychological advantage of not only how it flies, but where. By aiming off-center in many markets, it allows customers to savor the logistical ease of a Manchester, Islip or Providence, instead of the hectic snarls of a Boston, Newark or La Guardia, at least on one end of their journey. Southwest might be the closest thing we've got to an official airline of the suburbs.

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Meanwhile, and to a large measure antipodal to any lowered-expectations theory, it's fascinating how much of the praise for the most successful budget airlines seems to revolve not around price, but around service. JetBlue, voted best domestic airline by the readers of this column, is the most notable example, though even Southwest routinely scores high in passenger satisfaction. Thus the whole notion of "budget airline" becomes upended. JetBlue's own ad blitz exploits the idea that fares will speak for themselves; the emphasis instead is on personality: "People like JetBlue," the commercials boast, "because JetBlue likes people." A billboard proclaims: "New planes, new attitude."

JetBlue shuns the "budget" or "discount" tag, and chooses the expression "low fares airline." We can agree these are vague labels of convenience, but if it were all about fares, an airline wouldn't be showcasing its personality to such great lengths, and people wouldn't be praising not only the affordability of the ticket, but the overall pleasantness of the experience. There's a long way to go, but a combo of lower fares and higher standards, at one time assumed to be mutually exclusive, are a one-two punch the legacy carriers simply will not survive. Any of them.

For the thousands of out-of-work airline employees, yours truly among them, it's exasperating that the world's most established carriers, with 50, 60, or 70 years longevity, can't profitably emulate the attractions of a JetBlue. Of course, you'll tell me how the employees of Woolworth's and Sears probably wondered the same thing when the likes of Wal-Mart came nipping. Are the airlines floundering despite their ages and size, or because of them? For now, ask the big guys how to effectively stay in business, and they're likely to start ranting about workforce salaries. In truth, all the labor concessions in the world won't stem the defections if they continue selling a stagnant product. Chicken or the egg? Again, the answer is somewhere halfway.

A few of you wanted to hear about my own choices for favorite and least favorite airline. My partiality for Delta was documented last week, but beyond that I'm keeping mum. As you might recall, I subscribe to the belief that airline loyalties tend to be forged through unjustly subjective criteria. In function, performance varies widely day to day, flight to flight. This is particularly true vis-a-vis the U.S. majors, which are, at least to me, far more alike than different.

You're probably weary of my persistent valentines to overseas carriers, but what can I say? I'll always remember the unexpected charms of Air Mandalay, who served breakfast on an ATR turboprop during the short ride between Yangon and Bagan; Bangkok Airways, with hot meals on the hour-long hop to Phnom Penh. Or the now-defunct Ecuadorian carrier, SAETA, whose A320s featured bountiful legroom and an orchid with every meal. During a delay in Quito, SAETA rolled a buffet cart into the terminal and dispensed free refreshments.

On the other hand -- and let me set this up:

In keeping with my general principles, I was hoping to remain as impartial as I could to the much-maligned winner of my Golden Pretzel trophy, Northwest Airlines. My mother worked at Northwest for 20 years before retiring, and my experiences with the airline have carried me from Bangkok to Bozeman. In general those rides were no better, and no worse, than those aboard any of Northwest's main competitors.

However, if there is one flight that I shall always remember, solely for the wrong reasons, it was a Northwest red-eye to Europe, in October 1988. I was assigned to the center block of the very last row of an overbooked flight to Copenhagen. It was the only available seat, and it was the smoking section. Soon after takeoff, the cabin crew basically abandoned the entire rear portion of the plane. Or perhaps they couldn't find it through the impenetrable olive haze spewed forth by dozens of chain-smoking Danes. I remember forcing my way to the lav several times for water, filling a dirty paper cup from a spigot marked CAUTION, WATER NOT POTABLE.

To its credit, Northwest was first to ban smoking system-wide a few years later.

This discussion and this topic are now closed. Allow me to leave you with this, the most colorful of all e-mails submitted during my poll. It comes from Rich Kozel in Taipei, Taiwan. The airline is China Eastern, a mainland carrier based in Shanghai.

"China Eastern MD-11, Guangzhou to Shanghai, which I flew as crew during non-revenue proving flights in 1991. The ground staff allowed anything on board. One guy brought his Ping-Pong table and another guy brought his bicycle. Both fit neatly in the aisle blocking all access. In the business class cabin were dozens of watermelons, all nicely strapped into the seats. Guangzhou has great watermelons and Shanghai has none. China Eastern placed two mechanics on board whose sole job was to go to the local market and buy as many watermelons as they could find. I flew this route for sixty days straight, and every night it was a planeload of watermelons."

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Do you have questions for Salon's aviation expert? Send them to AskThePilot and look for answers in a future column.

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