Airline loyalty programs ....

With the prevelance of online airfare booking, I'm wondering if there is such a thing as brand loyalty for air travel. Sure, frequent business travelers may stick with the same airline because the company is picking up the tab, but it is my guess that the average consumer is more interested in finding the lowest fare than building up frequent flyer miles. Perhaps I'm falling into the trap that I'm the norm. In the past year, I've flown Northwest, American, US Air, Southwest, and AirTran. I'm only 3,000 miles away from a free flight on US Air, but considering their high fares out of Indy to the places that I want to travel, I'm in no rush to travel those miles. Considering I have flights booked this year on Southwest and American, I don't see a new trend this year.