Staying Airside at Newark Liberty

[Gary Brown]

I don't often travel through Newark, but have recently twice done Dallas - Geneva via that airport. Each time - in both directions - I got dumped out of airside when doing my airplane change, and had to go back through security. And yes - on one trip a very tight connection coupled with a late inbound and a horrendous line at security meant I missed my flight to GVA.

Was I just being dumb, or is it possible to stay airside for terminal / gate changes at Newark? If not, it seems to me that you need to allow as much as a couple of hours for a connection to be safe.

[Pax Vobiscum]

Welcome on board, AGBagb!

With a few exceptions, you must clear US customs and immigration at your first point of arrival/last point of departure into/from the USA. So I would expect to have to leave airside and go back through security because of the overseas destination. If you were just changing planes to go to Albany (say), that shouldn't be necessary.

Continental's timetables are aware of this, so you shouldn't be scheduled for less than a couple of hours to change planes at EWR (if you're coming in on another carrier or a separate ticket this wouldn't apply, of course). Alternatively, you can take the direct LH flight (but I expect you'd thought of that :ok:)

[Gary Brown]

Thanks for the welcome! If only I could afford those direct flights from DFW to Europe......

But seriously, in order to save my valuable $$$$ I often take the one-stop option. If I'm going to LGW or CDG I drop down to Houston on Continental, and get my international flight there. But at Houston you walk from the Dallas gate to the CDG gate airside (they often do an extra passport check at the international gate, but that's all - no extra security). And that seems to me to be the same in almost every other airport in the USA (and in Europe): you deplane airside and you switch gates airside.

Maybe I'm just imagining it (with the "joys" of air travel these days, I tend to do airports in a trance.......), but Newark seems to me to be the only place where you simply can't get from one terminal to another without leaving airside......

AGB

[Donkey497]

Hi AGBagb,

I do Edinburgh / Newark / Houston reasonably frequently (next monday being a case in point).

Every time on arrival into the US from the UK I have to clear immigration, pick up my luggage, head out groundside drop my hold bag off at the transfer, then head upstairs to join the security screening queue again. Doesn't matter that I've just spent 7 1/2 hours flying across the atlantic..... the TSA still seems to think I might harbour a perverse desire not to get get to my final destination and feel the need check my ticket & passport & to x-ray my shoes, hand luggage & sweatshirt before letting me back airside.

On the way back from Houston to Edinburgh, it's a whole different process. You check in at Bush, put your bag in & go through security & when you get to Newark, you just go to the next gate for the flight back to Edinburgh. No security, no bag check. The limit of any checking is your passport is checked when you hand in your I-94 slip.

Flying into Europe is a bit similar. I sometimes have to fly to Norway via Schipol where it's a bit crazy. As the UK didn't sign up to the Schengen treaty, if you fly via a Schengen signatory country, you have to clear immigration & security within the airport,:ugh::ugh: but you don't have to leave airside & you don't have to re-check your baggage.:confused::confused:


As they say, we're not the idiots who make the rules, we're nthe idiots who elected them & as a result we're the idiots who have to live by them. :sad::sad::sad: Doh!!

[VAFFPAX]

The difference is that you LEAVE, so a switch between Houston and Newark is not a problem... whereas if you arrive, you are a potential hostile who needs to be dealt with before you enter the great US of A.

Your first port of arrival is where you need to re-check your bag, regardless of whether it has been checked through or not. It HAS to be seen by Customs and their beagles before checking it in again, otherwise you might just smuggle God knows what into the country.

And because of the visa restrictions and their baggage systems, it is easier to stop your luggage at your first port of entry by making you recheck it, than if it was wizzed off to your final destination, only for you to have been denied entry to the country and your luggage sitting halfway across the country. And the last thing they want is for your (possibly bomb)laden luggage wizzing its way unaccompanied to another destination.

Some African countries have exactly the same view on that. We funnily enough don't, and trust that the person who's luggage left unaccompanied, will not have something explosive in it.

S.

[Gary Brown]

All very true, no doubt. But my original point still stands, I think. Why, at *Newark* can you not change terminals airside? And it even seems to me that within terminals, you can't always get to every other gate airside. I very regularly travel from Dallas to JFK and then onwards to Europe, to Chicago and onwards, to Raleigh / Durham and onwards, to Houston and onwards etc etc. Newark seems to me to be the only place where I have to go through full security again, simply in order to make my connection.

As DFW is my home airport, I never have to make a connection here - but I'm pretty sure that you can change terminals without leaving airside (yes, if you're inbound from Europe you have to clear immigration and customs, but then you head down the "transit passengers" route, never exiting airside...). And you can certainly do that in London, Paris, Rome (though there's something odd about connections in Amsterdam, as I recall.....)

AGB

[coolfatty]

because the terminals are not linked in any way.... assume you flew into C (CO) and out of B (SR) maybe ?

[obgraham]

As DFW is my home airport, I never have to make a connection here - but I'm pretty sure that you can change terminals without leaving airside
I'm not sure that's true. Certainly at Houston, after you get through customs you are then beyond security, and there is no "transit" corridor that avoids returning through security. My recollection last time at DFW was the same.

Their argument is that now you had access to your stuff, and you might try to reboard the plane with a full bottle of water.

[VAFFPAX]

coolfatty, I forgot about the terminals only being linked land-side (by monorail and by foot). I guess buses that go from the one to the other are out of the question... :-)

S.