OT: Newark airport

[rutgersal_rivals139582]

if you live in morris county, is it easier to fly out of LaGuardia or JFK as alternative? Speaking primarily from commuting standpoint

JFK is really easy via Mass Transit. NJ Transit Morris and Essex Line to Penn Station. LIRR to Jamaica to Airtrain.

For LaGuardia, you take E train to Roosevelt Avenue from Penn Station. Then Board the free bus to LaGuardia.

 

[rutgersal_rivals139582]

In lieu of driving to Philly, you can also take mass transit, which works great.

Take NJ Transit Northeast Corridor Line to Trenton. Get on Septa to 30th Street Station in Philly. Then take SEPTA Airport Line, which stops at all terminals.

 

[beaced_rivals]

Looks like a phone I had back in the late 30's.Worked great.Heard each other loudly and clearly.Why not?we were only a few feet apart

 

[tru2ru1]

EWR runs at 128% of capacity on a normal day, when you close one of the two main runways for several months, you get a sh*tshow like we have now, without the communication problems they are experiencing.

 

[R1766U_rivals]

Family had a flight from MCO to EWR at 7:30 am today via United. They waited an hour and half on runway in Orlando. Finally took off. Got over DC and had to circle for an hour and a half to wait to land in Newark because pilot said Newark was a complete mess. Ended up landing in DC, because they were going to be low on fuel and in the air too long I guess. This was about 12:30pm. Once they disembarked, staff
said they will be able to take off no sooner than 2:30 maybe later. Said it was combination of low staff, weather and one runway. Pilot kept referring to Newark as a total mess. They decided to rent a car and just drive home. At 2:45 they got notified plane was boarding and were kinda pissed they didnt wait. Plane ended up taking off and circling for another hour and a half then landed back in DC.

 

[yesrutgers01]

Family had a flight from MCO to EWR at 7:30 am today via United. They waited an hour and half on runway in Orlando. Finally took off. Got over DC and had to circle for an hour and a half to wait to land in Newark because pilot said Newark was a complete mess. Ended up landing in DC, because they were going to be low on fuel and in the air too long I guess. This was about 12:30pm. Once they disembarked, staff
said they will be able to take off no sooner than 2:30 maybe later. Said it was combination of low staff, weather and one runway. Pilot kept referring to Newark as a total mess. They decided to rent a car and just drive home. At 2:45 they got notified plane was boarding and were kinda pissed they didnt wait. Plane ended up taking off and circling for another hour and a half then landed back in DC.

Getting into EWR is a CF…my wife had no problem out but her inbound was canceled as she was on the way to the airport in an uber. Rescheduled her for 6 hours later. But that would have a connection out of DC. We decided I would just pick her up there. Glad I did as her connecting flight to EWR got canceled too.

 

[Joey Bags]

My employer, a large Fortune 50 Financial Services firm with a huge presence in NYC metro, removed EWR from the travel booking system until the end of June.

If ATC has dropped to 1-3 staff I have to imagine the FAA is having serious internal conversations as to whether or not the airport can remain operational at this point.

 

[WhichReligionIsRight]

EWR runs at 128% of capacity on a normal day, when you close one of the two main runways for several months, you get a sh*tshow like we have now, without the communication problems they are experiencing.

Where is the 128% of capacity figure from?

 

[-RUFAN4LIFE-]

How many years until AI is running all these centers?

 

[Yeah Baby]

EWR runs at 128% of capacity on a normal day, when you close one of the two main runways for several months, you get a sh*tshow like we have now, without the communication problems they are experiencing.

This. I flew in April no problem but the runway was all ripped up. Others I know had very short delays which is normal and considering only 1 runway not an issue. I see some horror stories out there and have lived many just like those.

 

[Yeah Baby]

Getting into EWR is a CF…my wife had no problem out but her inbound was canceled as she was on the way to the airport in an uber. Rescheduled her for 6 hours later. But that would have a connection out of DC. We decided I would just pick her up there. Glad I did as her connecting flight to EWR got canceled too.

Amtrak from DC to TRE is a breeze

 

[yesrutgers01]

Amtrak from DC to TRE is a breeze

I’m in Middletown DE so just a little over 2 hour drive to either Dulles or Newark. Wasn’t going to have the wife jump on a train

 

[RutgersDom]

The valet really takes a lot of the hassle out of it. I've got too much sh*t to think about to worry about where to park. Sign up on the app, pull up to the gate your flight is leaving from, they take it from there. Returning flight, they already have when your arriving and your car is there or you have to wait 5 mins. IMO, It was well worth the money.

Interesting...How much?

 

[tru2ru1]

Where is the 128% of capacity figure from?

Multiple articles state they have been at 128% for several years

 

[yesrutgers01]

Interesting...How much?

in most cases- just cheaper to Uber to the airport if you don't have a ride to drop off pick up

 

[fsg2_rivals]

in most cases- just cheaper to Uber to the airport if you don't have a ride to drop off pick up

Cheaper for the two Ubers?

Ime, best way beyond someone else dropping you off and picking up is Uber to airport, car service back. Probably around $200.

Actually, depending on who's picking you up, it might be the best way, period.

 

[yesrutgers01]

Cheaper for the two Ubers?

Ime, best way beyond someone else dropping you off and picking up is Uber to airport, car service back. Probably around $200.

Actually, depending on who's picking you up, it might be the best way, period.

I guess it depends on how long you are staying. Parking the car and tolls cost right in that area for 1 week. I mean you can do the long term parking, catch one of the shuttles, etc...

And then again, if you have young kids, you really can't do it that easy in an Uber either.

The last time I Ubered from Franklin lakes to EWR - it cost me $75 each way. And when I took a car service, it was $125 each way.

 

[RU848789]

Good article in the Atlantic on how we got here. I thought the most interesting part was the last paragraph, which details how government spending on discretionary items has shrunk from 12.3% of GDP in 1962 to 6.3% last year and obviously that has had an impact on things like infrastructure for the FAA (and everything else, really). The last part of the article is fairly political so I didn't include the link, but the excerpt below is pretty balanced. @DJ Spanky - pinging you to make sure this is ok to post. Feel free to delete, otherwise.

On this much, there is bipartisan agreement: The Federal Aviation Administration is in a bad mess. After years of exceptional safety, the U.S. air-travel system has recently been beset with near misses and, in one horrifying case, a collision. Air-traffic-control towers are badly understaffed, and controllers have now twice lost—for about 90 seconds and 30 to 90 seconds, respectively—the ability to track flights coming in and out of Newark. “Someone should have seen this coming in the last administration,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy complained yesterday on CNBC.

In fact, lots of people saw it coming. Regulators, pilots, controllers, airline executives, and outside observers all warned for years that the system was falling behind and running on outdated technology. Yet successive presidential administrations and Congresses didn’t act, lulled into a false sense of stability by a record 16-year stretch with no fatal commercial-airline crashes in the United States. The struggles of the air-safety regime are especially visceral—few news items are as dramatic as a plane crash, and many people are nervous flyers to begin with—but the FAA is a lot like much of the federal government: It functioned well for a long time, but years of inattention and underfunding have quietly driven it to the brink of collapse.
The fact that government spending continues to grow is well known, but that growth is driven by mandatory spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which grows as the American population ages and increases. Discretionary spending—that is, everything else—has for decades declined as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. is spending much less on these other government services than it did in 1962. Back then, discretionary spending was 12.3 percent of GDP; in fiscal year 2024, it was roughly 6.3 percent.

 

[RU848789]

I guess it depends on how long you are staying. Parking the car and tolls cost right in that area for 1 week. I mean you can do the long term parking, catch one of the shuttles, etc...

And then again, if you have young kids, you really can't do it that easy in an Uber either.

The last time I Ubered from Franklin lakes to EWR - it cost me $75 each way. And when I took a car service, it was $125 each way.

Costs us about $50 each way (~20 miles) to Uber for an EWR flight. So much less hassle being dropped and picked up right in front at the terminal vs. long term parking/shuttles (and the time involved) and if the trip is 5 days or more, it actually costs less for our $100 worth of Ubers than the $21/day at long term parking. Being retired now, we don't really do short trips anymore, like I occasionally did for work - but when I worked, all my transport to and from EWR (or JFK sometimes if international) was paid for by the Company.

 

[DJ Spanky]

@DJ Spanky - pinging you to make sure this is ok to post. Feel free to delete, otherwise.

Yeah, this is fine. This is really a non-partisan issue, blame falls on both sides over the last 20-30-40 years. I know one of the major issues is how to upgrade the equipment without taking it out of service. Unlike regular systems work, you can't build it in parallel, test it in parallel with the live system and then switch it in. Not, of course, unless we want to build another control tower at every single airport. The logistics of this are enormous, and no one wants to tackle it. They just want to keep kicking the can down the road.

 

[vkj91]

Good article in the Atlantic on how we got here. I thought the most interesting part was the last paragraph, which details how government spending on discretionary items has shrunk from 12.3% of GDP in 1962 to 6.3% last year and obviously that has had an impact on things like infrastructure for the FAA (and everything else, really). The last part of the article is fairly political so I didn't include the link, but the excerpt below is pretty balanced. @DJ Spanky - pinging you to make sure this is ok to post. Feel free to delete, otherwise.

On this much, there is bipartisan agreement: The Federal Aviation Administration is in a bad mess. After years of exceptional safety, the U.S. air-travel system has recently been beset with near misses and, in one horrifying case, a collision. Air-traffic-control towers are badly understaffed, and controllers have now twice lost—for about 90 seconds and 30 to 90 seconds, respectively—the ability to track flights coming in and out of Newark. “Someone should have seen this coming in the last administration,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy complained yesterday on CNBC.

In fact, lots of people saw it coming. Regulators, pilots, controllers, airline executives, and outside observers all warned for years that the system was falling behind and running on outdated technology. Yet successive presidential administrations and Congresses didn’t act, lulled into a false sense of stability by a record 16-year stretch with no fatal commercial-airline crashes in the United States. The struggles of the air-safety regime are especially visceral—few news items are as dramatic as a plane crash, and many people are nervous flyers to begin with—but the FAA is a lot like much of the federal government: It functioned well for a long time, but years of inattention and underfunding have quietly driven it to the brink of collapse.
The fact that government spending continues to grow is well known, but that growth is driven by mandatory spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which grows as the American population ages and increases. Discretionary spending—that is, everything else—has for decades declined as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. is spending much less on these other government services than it did in 1962. Back then, discretionary spending was 12.3 percent of GDP; in fiscal year 2024, it was roughly 6.3 percent.

Who cares about the %, what are actual numbers of dollars being spent on discretional items. It’s still a huge number. They passed a trillion dollar infrastructure bill and not one dollar was earmarked for something that "lots of people saw coming" we spend plenty of money etc we just allow it to be allocated by idiots who are more concerned with pet projects, BS causes, and headlines than actual infrastructure

 

[megadrone]

How many years until AI is running all these centers?

Al? So Newark airport really just needs a fieldhouse and all will be good?

 

[vkj91]

Al? So Newark airport really just needs a fieldhouse and all will be good?

nah, mostly just need NIL to get ATC to transfer to Newark. Not saw market transfers like guys from Lehigh Valley or Westchester but LAX and Austin.

 

[DJ Spanky]

we spend plenty of money etc we just allow it to be allocated by idiots who are more concerned with pet projects, BS causes, and headlines than actual infrastructure

Yep, both sides of the aisle are guilty of this over the course of decades. Just like our rotting bridges and dams, lip service is given to correcting the problem yet the money goes elsewhere. Isn't there a bridge built in Alaska that goes nowhere? I seem to recall something like that built using federal funds.

 

[Knight Shift]

I guess it depends on how long you are staying. Parking the car and tolls cost right in that area for 1 week. I mean you can do the long term parking, catch one of the shuttles, etc...

And then again, if you have young kids, you really can't do it that easy in an Uber either.

The last time I Ubered from Franklin lakes to EWR - it cost me $75 each way. And when I took a car service, it was $125 each way.

Not sure if reading this right, and @koleszar can confirm. $50/day????

Fook that!

https://parkphlvalet.com/

Costs us about $50 each way (~20 miles) to Uber for an EWR flight. So much less hassle being dropped and picked up right in front at the terminal vs. long term parking/shuttles (and the time involved) and if the trip is 5 days or more, it actually costs less for our $100 worth of Ubers than the $21/day at long term parking. Being retired now, we don't really do short trips anymore, like I occasionally did for work - but when I worked, all my transport to and from EWR (or JFK sometimes if international) was paid for by the Company.

That's cheap. More like $150 each way from South Monmouth to EWR. Actually, we can get a private car for about the same, which is what I did for an upcoming business trip.

If those rates I linked for valet out of Philly are correct, that is insane. A 7 day trip is $350.

 

[fsg2_rivals]

$50 a day is rough. Hard to make that work versus Uber or even car service.

 

[koleszar]

Not sure if reading this right, and @koleszar can confirm. $50/day????

Fook that!

https://parkphlvalet.com/

That's cheap. More like $150 each way from South Monmouth to EWR. Actually, we can get a private car for about the same, which is what I did for an upcoming business trip.

If those rates I linked for valet out of Philly are correct, that is insane. A 7 day trip is $350.

Yes, we went for 7 days and it cost us $300 got some kickback or coupon (ask the wife). The price for car service was comparable from where we are to Philly. So, for us it was a wash. I can't leave the farm or business for extended periods of time, so I've never been away for more than a week. So yes, I would do it again and yes, I should have clarified it's not a long term option.

 

[RU848789]

Who cares about the %, what are actual numbers of dollars being spent on discretional items. It’s still a huge number. They passed a trillion dollar infrastructure bill and not one dollar was earmarked for something that "lots of people saw coming" we spend plenty of money etc we just allow it to be allocated by idiots who are more concerned with pet projects, BS causes, and headlines than actual infrastructure

If I had numbers on actual dollars budgeted for FAA infrastructure, I'd post them, but I don't. But directionally, the fact that discretionary spending has been cut roughly in half over 60 years is likely at least part of the explanation and yes, I have zero idea what's been spent on FAA radar and communications infrastructure over this time, although it's almost certainly not the zero you implied above since the infrastructure bill, as per the link, below, from the DOT, which states that airports were scheduled to receive $25B out of the $673B (new spending) in the bill, so surely some of that has gone to radar/communications upgrades.

https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/cvki-zubk

 

[tom1944]

Yes, we went for 7 days and it cost us $300 got some kickback or coupon (ask the wife). The price for car service was comparable from where we are to Philly. So, for us it was a wash. I can't leave the farm or business for extended periods of time, so I've never been away for more than a week. So yes, I would do it again.

We are going for 10 days so I have to look into 3 options- car service which we have used the last 3 years. Stay overnight at a hotel near the airport that offers free parking (Renaissance-Newark) or fly out of Philadelphia and use the valet parking option,

 

[yesrutgers01]

yeah- parking prices are crazy. And if you decide to go to economy parking to save a few bucks - it is such a pain in the ***. but 7 days parking will usually be at least the same as Uber in many cases and then you also don't have to worry about your car sitting there for a week.

OMG- years back- maybe 2004. I took my kids on a 2 week trip to Jamaica. While there, I lost my parking ticket which I had written down our parking spot. This was LGA, not EWR. While they were able to use my itinerary to charge me correctly, what a nightmare to find my car. I didnt even remember which level I was on. lol

 

[koleszar]

We are going for 10 days so I have to look into 3 options- car service which we have used the last 3 years. Stay overnight at a hotel near the airport that offers free parking (Renaissance-Newark) or fly out of Philadelphia and use the valet parking option,

10 days, it will probably weigh more towards the car service out of Philly. For us it was one half dozen or the other at 7 days. Most of our trips are short as they're wellness checks on Mom in Naples. My wife is going to Japan for 14 days out of JFK and she's using a car service as the money favors that.

 

[yesrutgers01]

We are going for 10 days so I have to look into 3 options- car service which we have used the last 3 years. Stay overnight at a hotel near the airport that offers free parking (Renaissance-Newark) or fly out of Philadelphia and use the valet parking option,

On my trip to Jamaica with my kids back in 04, I used a travel agent that was recommended to me. I think she was with Liberty Travel.

So- we have an early morning flight out and my kids were 10 & 12. So, I figure it would be easier to stay overnight near the airport. So, I ask her to book that for us as well. So- I pick up my itinerary and see the hotel in Queens near LGA and knew the time of my flight. For some reason, I never double checked the airport code.

So, we stay at this crappy Queens motel near LGA, get to the checkin maybe 2.5 hours before departure. I am not seeing my flight. I find an agent for the airline to see if she could help. She looks at the tickets and tells me my flight is out of EWR, not LGA. And that there would be no way at that point to be able to drive over to make the flight. I kicked myself in the *** for just trusting the travel agent and me not double checking...But why would she get me a motel near LGA if she booked the flights out of Newark.

Lucky for us- the airline(can't remember who it was) saw me and my kids and they got us on the first flight out of LGA direct to Jamaica. I believe they also put us on a competing airline. Got there maybe an hour later then we planned. But wow- saved the day.

 

[tom1944]

10 days, it will probably weigh more towards the car service out of Philly. For us it was one half dozen or the other at 7 days. Most of our trips are short as they're wellness checks on Mom in Naples. My wife is going to Japan for 14 days out of JFK and she's using a car service as the money favors that.

My wife is a very generous tipper so that adds up. The last 2 years the car service forgot to come with our car seat which was also a problem. Did not mean my wife decreased the tip though.

 

[fsg2_rivals]

yeah- parking prices are crazy. And if you decide to go to economy parking to save a few bucks - it is such a pain in the ***. but 7 days parking will usually be at least the same as Uber in many cases and then you also don't have to worry about your car sitting there for a week.

OMG- years back- maybe 2004. I took my kids on a 2 week trip to Jamaica. While there, I lost my parking ticket which I had written down our parking spot. This was LGA, not EWR. While they were able to use my itinerary to charge me correctly, what a nightmare to find my car. I didnt even remember which level I was on. lol

Other big advantage is not having to drive home. Not a big deal on a short domestic hop, but last thing I want after spending a never-ending day on multiple airplanes is to have to drive home, maybe during rush hour.

Gotta be a car service in that case because don't feel like dicking around with Uber, either.

 

[yesrutgers01]

Other big advantage is not having to drive home. Not a big deal on a short domestic hop, but last thing I want after spending a never-ending day on multiple airplanes is to have to drive home, maybe during rush hour.

Gotta be a car service in that case because don't feel like dicking around with Uber, either.

When I was still in Bergen Co...A woman that my wife did mult mortgages for had a care service and I would use her service all of the time. $125 each way. Also worked out on a trip where we had a couple of younger kids going with us that needed car seats in the limo but did not need them at our destination. The car service just took the car seats home with her and brought them with her on our arrival. Worked out perfectly.

in the late 90's I was working for a company that had me flying almost every week. I lived in Poughkeepsie but they would still send a car service to pick me up and drop me off regardless if I flew out of JFK/LGA/EWR...
That was always the best and it must have cost them a pretty penny.

 

[tom1944]

When I was still in Bergen Co...A woman that my wife did mult mortgages for had a care service and I would use her service all of the time. $125 each way. Also worked out on a trip where we had a couple of younger kids going with us that needed car seats in the limo but did not need them at our destination. The car service just took the car seats home with her and brought them with her on our arrival. Worked out perfectly.

in the late 90's I was working for a company that had me flying almost every week. I lived in Poughkeepsie but they would still send a car service to pick me up and drop me off regardless if I flew out of JFK/LGA/EWR...
That was always the best and it must have cost them a pretty penny.

That is how the car service I used was supposed to handle the car seat. They took my car seat and 2 years in a row the drivers came at pickup without it.

 

[yesrutgers01]

That is how the car service I used was supposed to handle the car seat. They took my car seat and 2 years in a row the drivers came at pickup without it.

I wouldn't trust it if I don't know them

 

[RUBOB72]

Good article in the Atlantic on how we got here. I thought the most interesting part was the last paragraph, which details how government spending on discretionary items has shrunk from 12.3% of GDP in 1962 to 6.3% last year and obviously that has had an impact on things like infrastructure for the FAA (and everything else, really). The last part of the article is fairly political so I didn't include the link, but the excerpt below is pretty balanced. @DJ Spanky - pinging you to make sure this is ok to post. Feel free to delete, otherwise.

On this much, there is bipartisan agreement: The Federal Aviation Administration is in a bad mess. After years of exceptional safety, the U.S. air-travel system has recently been beset with near misses and, in one horrifying case, a collision. Air-traffic-control towers are badly understaffed, and controllers have now twice lost—for about 90 seconds and 30 to 90 seconds, respectively—the ability to track flights coming in and out of Newark. “Someone should have seen this coming in the last administration,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy complained yesterday on CNBC.

In fact, lots of people saw it coming. Regulators, pilots, controllers, airline executives, and outside observers all warned for years that the system was falling behind and running on outdated technology. Yet successive presidential administrations and Congresses didn’t act, lulled into a false sense of stability by a record 16-year stretch with no fatal commercial-airline crashes in the United States. The struggles of the air-safety regime are especially visceral—few news items are as dramatic as a plane crash, and many people are nervous flyers to begin with—but the FAA is a lot like much of the federal government: It functioned well for a long time, but years of inattention and underfunding have quietly driven it to the brink of collapse.
The fact that government spending continues to grow is well known, but that growth is driven by mandatory spending on entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which grows as the American population ages and increases. Discretionary spending—that is, everything else—has for decades declined as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. is spending much less on these other government services than it did in 1962. Back then, discretionary spending was 12.3 percent of GDP; in fiscal year 2024, it was roughly 6.3 percent.

The social security and Medicare problem could have been fixed 30 years ago. MEDICAID NOT MEDICARE is the one which needs solving. Social security is unfortunately another boondoggle which a large segment of society depends upon for just simple everyday things. Better we work to change what career politicians are entitled to upon the ends of their terms in government. They’re so deserving…lol

 

[Knight Shift]

Yes, we went for 7 days and it cost us $300 got some kickback or coupon (ask the wife). The price for car service was comparable from where we are to Philly. So, for us it was a wash. I can't leave the farm or business for extended periods of time, so I've never been away for more than a week. So yes, I would do it again and yes, I should have clarified it's not a long term option.

Did not get quoted for PHL, but you are fairly close to me. There is a car service in Howell, Dependable Car Service. Have used them twice and they have been great. The cars are not top of the line, but nice Lincolns that are clean and new enough.

We are going for 10 days so I have to look into 3 options- car service which we have used the last 3 years. Stay overnight at a hotel near the airport that offers free parking (Renaissance-Newark) or fly out of Philadelphia and use the valet parking option,

I think I had referred you to Dependable Car Service in Howell once before. I'm taking them to EWR Sunday for my flight to San Diego. Might be cheaper and quicker for them to drive me to San Diego.

yeah- parking prices are crazy. And if you decide to go to economy parking to save a few bucks - it is such a pain in the ***. but 7 days parking will usually be at least the same as Uber in many cases and then you also don't have to worry about your car sitting there for a week.

OMG- years back- maybe 2004. I took my kids on a 2 week trip to Jamaica. While there, I lost my parking ticket which I had written down our parking spot. This was LGA, not EWR. While they were able to use my itinerary to charge me correctly, what a nightmare to find my car. I didnt even remember which level I was on. lol

The EWR parking is insane. There are enough off airport lots that have much better rates with van service to the terminal. On a 3-4 day trip, my wife's friend paid double for her parking at Long Term EWR vs what we pay at Corporate Airport Parking. Been parking there for years without issue, and it is a nice family operation.

 

[RUBOB72]

NJ Transit? Just was told a breakdown of average bus driver salaries… $ 120k - up over 200k with OT. Not bad if true .Know for a fact you can’t find many qualified CDL bus drivers in this metro area. That is a good reason to pay those type of numbers.