I hope this question isn't too open-ended for MO --- it's not my favorite type of question, but I do think there could be a good answer. I will happily CW the question if commenters want, but I also want answerers to pick up points for good answers, so...

Let $X,Y$ be smooth manifolds. A smooth map $f: Y \to X$ is a bundle if there exists a smooth manifold $F$ and a covering $U_i$ of $X$ such that for each $U_i$, there is a diffeomorphism $\phi_i : F\times U_i \overset\sim\to f^{-1}(U_i)$ that intertwines the projections to $U_i$. This isn't my favorite type of definition, because it demands existence of structure without any uniqueness, but I don't want to define $F,U_i,\phi_i$ as part of the data of the bundle, as then I'd have the wrong notion of morphism of bundles.

A definition I'm much happier with is of a submersion $f: Y \to X$, which is a smooth map such that for each $y\in Y$, the differential ${\rm d}f|\_y : {\rm T}\_y Y \to {\rm T}\_{f(y)}X$ is surjective. I'm under the impression that submersions have all sorts of nice properties. For example, preimages of points are embedded submanifolds (maybe preimages of embedded submanifolds are embedded submanifolds?).

So, I know various ways that submersions are nice. Any bundle is in particular a submersion, and the converse is true for proper submersions (a map is proper if the preimage of any compact set is compact), but of course in general there are many submersions that are not bundles (take any open subset of $\mathbb R^n$, for example, and project to a coordinate $\mathbb R^m$ with $m\leq n$). But in the work I've done, I haven't ever really needed more from a bundle than that it be a submersion. Then again, I tend to do very local things, thinking about formal neighborhoods of points and the like.

So, I'm wondering for some applications where I really need to use a bundle --- where some important fact is not true for general submersions (or, surjective submersions with connected fibers, say).

I hope this question isn't too open-ended for MO --- it's not my favorite type of question, but I do think there could be a good answer. I will happily CW the question if commenters want, but I also want answerers to pick up points for good answers, so...

Let $X,Y$ be smooth manifolds. A smooth map $f: Y \to X$ is a bundle if there exists a smooth manifold $F$ and a covering $U_i$ of $X$ such that for each $U_i$, there is a diffeomorphism $\phi_i : F\times U_i \overset\sim\to f^{-1}(U_i)$ that intertwines the projections to $U_i$. This isn't my favorite type of definition, because it demands existence of structure without any uniqueness, but I don't want to define $F,U_i,\phi_i$ as part of the data of the bundle, as then I'd have the wrong notion of morphism of bundles.

A definition I'm much happier with is of a submersion $f: Y \to X$, which is a smooth map such that for each $y\in Y$, the differential map ${\rm d}f|_y : {\rm T}_y Y \to {\rm T}_{f(y)}X$ is surjective. I'm under the impression that submersions have all sorts of nice properties. For example, preimages of points are embedded submanifolds (maybe preimages of embedded submanifolds are embedded submanifolds?).

So, I know various ways that submersions are nice. Any bundle is in particular a submersion, and the converse is true for proper submersions (a map is proper if the preimage of any compact set is compact), but of course in general there are many submersions that are not bundles (take any open subset of $\mathbb R^n$, for example, and project to a coordinate $\mathbb R^m$ with $m\leq n$). But in the work I've done, I haven't ever really needed more from a bundle than that it be a submersion. Then again, I tend to do very local things, thinking about formal neighborhoods of points and the like.

So, I'm wondering for some applications where I really need to use a bundle --- where some important fact is not true for general submersions (or, surjective submersions with connected fibers, say).