It’s going to be problematic until they get this rectified.
Fortunately, they’ve redone LaGuardia so it doesn’t look like Mogadishu anymore.
OT: Newark airport
- Thread starter tom1944
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Fortunately, they’ve redone LaGuardia so it doesn’t look like Mogadishu anymore.
Looks like you're going to roll right into Shea Bay upon takeoff !!
I flew out and back from Newark to London last year, last April. Never again. Going out no issues but going through customs on the return was awful.
This August flying round trip to Amsterdam on my way to Rotterdam and the Flanders region of Belgium. AA flight and it was cheap, especially for going in the summer. Customs in Philly is easy.
The worst is Montreal on the return!
This August flying round trip to Amsterdam on my way to Rotterdam and the Flanders region of Belgium. AA flight and it was cheap, especially for going in the summer. Customs in Philly is easy.
The worst is Montreal on the return!
“I don’t want to say panic because panic isn’t the right word, but it was hectic,” the controller said. “We were trying to figure out what’s working, what’s not.”
The outage impacted information from radars located at an FAA facility in Westbury, New York, where the air traffic controllers formerly managed flights heading to Newark. Control over the airspace was transferred to Philadelphia last July. The radars are now operated using a remote line that one source described as “a long extension cord.”
The outage impacted information from radars located at an FAA facility in Westbury, New York, where the air traffic controllers formerly managed flights heading to Newark. Control over the airspace was transferred to Philadelphia last July. The radars are now operated using a remote line that one source described as “a long extension cord.”
Can someone explain. WHY all of a sudden?
Flight out of PHL noon tomorrow. Wills have been updated.
Double vodka and grapefruit by 11am. Maybe two.
Flight out of PHL noon tomorrow. Wills have been updated.
Double vodka and grapefruit by 11am. Maybe two.
The bigger question people and the FAA should be thinking about is whether the Newark situation is unique, given the extended path from the EWR source radars to the LI facility they used to and still go to and then the transfer of the data from LI to Philly (and I'm guessing it's all raw data until received and processed in Philly) or if it could become more common given the aging radars and infrastructure throughout the US aviation system.
As per the link, there was a 6-minute outage at JFK in 2018, but I don't recall hearing anything about that one, plus the FAA only gave an outage a medium overall risk for the analysis of the move from LI to Philly for EWR radar data and ATC oversight in Philly - to me that sounds low for a risk that should consist of the combination of the probability of the failure (which they estimated to be 1 in 11,000,000, which sounds too remote to me) times the potential impact of that failure if it occurs (which is humongous).
I've done a lot of these kinds of risk analyses in the chemical industry and my gut tells me that the Newark situation is just the tip of the iceberg and we're going to see more of these kinds of failures in more locations (just based on the fact that supposedly the infrastructure is old nearly everywhere and not unique to EWR), which is not good. As I said in my first post in this thread, this is a bipartisan problem 40+ years in the making and needs to be treated as a safety emergency for US aviation, in general. I'll be driving to Florida in June.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/09/us/newark-delays-air-traffic-control-safety-invs#:~:text=To%20determine%20the%20likelihood%20of,of%20the%202022%20report's%20conclusions.
As per the link, there was a 6-minute outage at JFK in 2018, but I don't recall hearing anything about that one, plus the FAA only gave an outage a medium overall risk for the analysis of the move from LI to Philly for EWR radar data and ATC oversight in Philly - to me that sounds low for a risk that should consist of the combination of the probability of the failure (which they estimated to be 1 in 11,000,000, which sounds too remote to me) times the potential impact of that failure if it occurs (which is humongous).
I've done a lot of these kinds of risk analyses in the chemical industry and my gut tells me that the Newark situation is just the tip of the iceberg and we're going to see more of these kinds of failures in more locations (just based on the fact that supposedly the infrastructure is old nearly everywhere and not unique to EWR), which is not good. As I said in my first post in this thread, this is a bipartisan problem 40+ years in the making and needs to be treated as a safety emergency for US aviation, in general. I'll be driving to Florida in June.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/09/us/newark-delays-air-traffic-control-safety-invs#:~:text=To%20determine%20the%20likelihood%20of,of%20the%202022%20report's%20conclusions.
Seems to me that the trigger for the increased publicity of the issues at EWR was the United CEO coming out and saying that the airport could no longer handle the daily flight schedule and that UA was cutting 35 flights from its daily schedule. This was initially attributed to the runway repaving. While the delays had started and the prior system malfunction occurred slightly before UA's action, I tend to agree with your suspicion that such outages are not that rare at EWR.
The govt band-aid response seems to be focused on stabilizing the transmission between LI and Philly as well as trying to address the staffing shortfall. The first part of this maybe unique to the EWR coverage model and the staffing may also be greater in high cost areas that have complex ATC environments. It seems ATC staff can be experienced at one location but then need a considerable amount of time to fully function at a location like EWR. Kicking the can down the road is just a bad strategy for a situation like this and other looming problems like entitlement programs.
And we have a growing facility right here in NJ to train them
hopefully all.oat =almost and not that you are all oats now..
Drive past it every time I fly out of Atlantic City.
I tried…
So anyway, about Newark Airport...
Quick peak on Google maps (using Mendham as a starting point) says LaGuardia is closer/shorter.
But I guess it matters depending on the time-of-day you're traveling. I picked right now, 1pm on a Saturday.
When I used to travel weekly on business I was shocked to find out LaGuardia was 1 mile closer to me than Newark from NW Bergen County (based on miles for my expense reports). Tolls to get there/back were $10-15 hirer due to the GW and RFK Bridge.
Yeah, same thing as I lived in eastern Bergen County growing up. The traffic getting there made Newark seem closer.
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I heard this is great. I will look into it. How long is the drive to Philly Airport? Do you use the turnpike or 95 through Pennsylvania?
Turnpike south to Exit 6, over the Delaware River Bridge then take the exit for Philly
I'm in Northern Howell and it's ~75 minutes with no traffic
I would never do that trip without checking traffic first. More often than not, taking 195 to the NJ TPK and then going south to exit 4 and 295 then 76 to Philly is significantly faster than 195 to the NJ TPK to exit 6 to 95 in PA and then down to Philly, because 95 through Philly often just sucks. If there's zero traffic, the 95 in PA route is about 2 miles shorter, so that would be slightly faster, but it's unusual in my experience (coming from Metuchen and going to Philly Int'l or that area, where I hit the same point folks from the shore heading on 195W do) that 95 in PA is better. Just my $0.02.
I would also valet over parking and all that hassle. Another good option can be Uber or a taxi, at least for us flying out of Newark, which is ~15 miles (we always do that instead of parking) - not sure if the Uber price is crazy if going 80 miles though, relative to valet in Philly.
And by the way, thanks to the mods from bringing this thread back.
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Only flown out of LGA a few times and yikes! I'll also never forget my first time flying into SF - I had no idea the airport was essentially an island and as we were descending through the marine layer and popped below it a few hundred feet up, all I could see through the window was water and for a split second I thought we were done, lol. I also don't love flying - the whole potential giant metal fireball thing - although I don't avoid flying per se (except maybe for our June trip to FL, although I actually like the drive and enjoy stopping off to play disc golf at great courses along the way that I wouldn't drive to otherwise).
You guys would have loved the old Hong Kong airport, Kai Tak...
Flew in there a couple times and once was in a typhoon, which made things very interesting, as mentioned in the video. Seeing the people in their apartment windows as you flew past was fun too.
Not a good night at EWR (or, actually in Philly where the EWR TRACON is), as they only had 3 ATCs on shift vs. the 14 that are supposed to be on shift. The people on leave need to get back to work, but that's only a small part of the staffing issue, supposedly, so something needs to be done by the FAA here (transfers from better staffed airports, intensive shorter duration training, etc.), as EWR is the 13th busiest airport in the US.
https://www.nj.com/essex/2025/05/ne...XKXzfwAmL9A9P9JnCQ_aem_3bD0HOUEWRS4eoGmYbLRsQ
https://www.nj.com/essex/2025/05/ne...XKXzfwAmL9A9P9JnCQ_aem_3bD0HOUEWRS4eoGmYbLRsQ
I've had to make multiple trips to the Wills Eye Hospital in Philly the past few weeks from the Spotswood area and was going to say this - purely dependent on traffic. If there isn't any, not sure why anyone would take 95 in PA to get to the airport - that road sucks.
My first time into LGA was similar. Foggy weather and the first time we were able to see the ground out of the window was almost just as we were about to land. Except, it wasn't the ground we saw but water just below us. I swear, mult people shouted.
BTW- back in the 80's and 90's- they barely canceled or delayed flights for weather like they do now. Sit on the tarmacs for mult de-icings, entire flights flying in clouds, flew out of Atlanta in a major lightning storm, and I had a year I lived in RI and that winter, flying in and out of Providence every single week. I remember landing one time without knowing we were touching down because of the super heavy fog...One moment, flying and next, big bump and bounce...lol
Wife flew into Dulles yesterday after they canceled her flight to EWR. They wanted her to connect in Dulles and fly into EWR from there- and glad we decided to just pick her up in DC...she never would have made it home if we didn't.
The Dulles/Reagan/Baltimore return flights to EWR are always a crap shoot. Most of the times we just took the AMTRAK back instead.
Yep, have noticed the same about the weather they allow flying in now vs. back then. Had a few of those fog landings where you didn't know you were landing until the wheels hit the ground - not fun. I also flew a lot to Albany, GA, via Atlanta in 93/94, as we had a factory there and during the summer months, especially, I often opted for the 3 hour drive from ATL to Albany over the 90 minute flight (maybe 30 minutes of actual flying time), because we had a few harrowing flights in t-storms.
Also, flew a lot to Ireland in the 90s (factory there, too) and one flight was the worst I ever had. Tons of turbulence the last hour or so and landing at Shannon in a serious gale with 30-50 mph sustained winds and higher gusts. I'll never forget the captain telling us all that it was going to be a "difficult" landing and for everyone to absolutely be strapped in and to not panic if we had to abort the landing (he actually said that). The final approach was the scariest 60 seconds of my life - we all applauded after we were safely on the ground.
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