Newark, Nj/continental Airlines

[TCAS FAN]

I've finally arrived back in the UK 24 hours behind schedule due to missing a flight connection at EWR.

My flight out of TPA gave me a 3 + hour transfer time, arrived, checked in, a 55 minute delay was shown. According to ground staff it was due to "adverse weather" at Newark. Checked this, they had rain reported.

Delay then extended to 2 hours, boarded, then became three hours, good-bye connection!

From what I can establish the weather in EWR was not as "adverse" as was made out by Continental. Talking to other pax the consensus was "it happens all the time".

Can anybody explain exactly what the problem is with either EWR or Continental?

[True Blue]

Remember other pax will have little good to say about operators, it will always be their fault. My son was travelling about two weeks ago, Denver - Newark, his flight was delayed 3+ hours, the aircraft had arrived on time into Denver. I checked Newark site and it was clear there was major delays due weather. He was flying United, had done a major trip with many flights and this was the only one delayed.

True Blue

[Lily Rowan]

Newark is one of 5 extremely crowded airports within 30 miles of NYC (LaGuardia, JFK, Westchester, and Teterboro are the others) and is in the middle of one of the busiest traffic corridors in the U.S. (coming from Tampa, your flight would merge with domestic and international flights to and from 2 other commercial airports close to New York – Stewart and MacArthur – 3 major DC-area airports, as well as Philadelphia and Boston traffic – all ascending and descending within a confined area). Because of this, traffic flows in the Northeast are often reduced during inclement weather, resulting in long delays. Unless you’re on an early-morning flight, it’s best to expect delays of approximately 2 hours when flying to or from any New York airport.

Next time, when flying Continental, you might be better off connecting through Houston.

[gooneydog]

I agree with Lily Have operated into sEWeR numerous times in the last month mostly perfect weather yet traffic saturation causes EDCT times to run approx 2 hours late You either wait to board and take off or leave on time hold for an hour then divert for fuel and start all over If any airline ever gets priority at this airport it's likely to be CO

[Number34]

Would you be happy with them flying into weather that could put you in danger? Just because you thought it was good enough to fly in doesn't really mean anything. People want 100% on time flights but 100% safety, You can't have it both ways, and I know which one I'll take anyday of the week.

[Load Toad]

If it comes to a choice of being on time or being safe - I'll take safe every time.

Once, drunk in a bar - I said to a pilot - 'Just don't crash when I'm on your plane.' - to which he replied 'Do you think I'd want to crash with me on my plane?'

So - trust 'em to make the right decision eh?

[Donkey497]

To be honest, althouigh EWR is, as has been pointed out fairly congested, the bigger part of the problem is the relative lack of empty transatlantic seats, coupled with most of the eastbound flights coming across overnight. The lack of spare capacity across the pond means that when there is a problem, it's very difficult to arrange onward travel, short of adding an extra flight, which would be prohibitively expensive for the airline concerned.

The fact that the majority of eastbound flights are overnight flights is down largely to the historic attitude of BAA and the government that there should only be one gateway into the UK [i.e. Heathrow] and that the rest of the country should transfer at Heathrow. Fine in principle if you have a good network service at reasonable cost. However, due to the fact that Heathrow has a morning and night curfew, it can't operate 24 hours a day, so inbound flights have to arrive in a particular time slot. Now we have a much poorer network in the UK the model is falling apart.

Unfortunately, even although other services to other airports have been established, the way that the global timetables that have evolved over many years around the historic gateway airports are too established to let these other services really prosper in the way that they should.

As a fairly regular commuter through EWR enroute from EDI to IAH [should have been on this route on monday, but plans changed], I can sympathise with your problem and I've been very close to being in the same position on more thaone occasion, but so far have managed to squeak onto my connections. Generally I've found both Continental employees & airport staff to be pretty helpful when it's been tight to make it between flights. I can only sympathise with what happened to you, but at the same time I'd also say that a lot of restrictions are & have to be, put in place for safety due to weather forecasts, but the weather doesn't always live up to what the Met guys expect it to do.

Just accept that sometimes plans go adrift because of things we have no control over. As long as no-one is hurt, then that's about all we can hope for.