kdinino

Edited: EWR Nightmare, how IRR Ops gets handled at EWR-Wrong and my 9 yr old niece and mother stranded

Co 1462 utter disgrace, co has pax wait from 5 pm to midnight, boards plane and then the flight crew announces they're 20 mins over allotted time and voila flight is cancelled at 1 am set. Now there's a mob at ewe and ho hotels available in town....well done co, and ewe, for not canceling earlier when people might have had a better option than the carpet on the floor of ewe.

I've been down this road but is their any recourse? Or can co claim weather prevented the pilots to show 7 hrs late and not say their horrible ops shat the bed on this one. I feel horrible for my niece traveling on her 9 th birthday through Americas he'll hole, ewr

zrs70

Is your niece alone?

kdinino

Thankfully no, with her mother. I can't imagine if she was. Is anyone at ewr? Have heard it's getting unruly there at gate.

golfingboy

A few hours ago, the average delay over at EWR was 3.5 hours according to flightaware.com, so it is a royal mess there...

Sorry your niece has to endure this fiasco

DeaconFlyer

The whole Mid-Atlantic and Northeast was shut down at some point this afternoon/evening. It's not going to be pretty anywhere.

kdinino

then dont board a flight banking on a flight crew coming in from iad...and then board and cancel after your over limit at 1 am est

clublounger

overly dramatic thread title

kdinino

Ah yes, grammar police. Edited to better reflect situation. Pax on this flight mostly sleeping on floor of airport thanks to no rooms available. What irks me is later scheduled flight left , yet this flight waited longer and crew waiting times out and oh well lets board and the drop it. CO OPS failed big time tonight. Cancel a flight you nimwits, dont wait until 1 am --their are kids on these flights.

I used my best FT skills, after asking to be re-booked on any airlines and for some sort of compensation for my sister/niece while on the ground (access to club would even help a ton), nothing, nada. No status can do wonders eh?

sbm12

Why blame CO here? Had your sister and niece gone to the counter and said that it was too late and they wanted to be rebooked for the next available CO flight because of the delay they likely would have been accommodated.

The storms that rolled through EWR and the NYC area last night were some of the most severe we've had this year. Lightning, hail and heavy rains will always cause significant delays. Just because this one flight happened to have a 9 year old on it - someone who was not traveling alone nor truly "stuck" - or just because that 9 year old is related to you isn't going to have Ops give it priority to get out of the airport.

Had she been traversing LGA, JFK, PHL or even TEB on a private jet the delays would have likely been similar.

kwildnj

Maybe I'm missing something here, but looking at flight 1462, it shows as operating, nearly 4 hours late, but shows as flown. -- Ill assume you meant 1426?

Continental Flight:.1462
Departure Date:.Aug 19, 2011
Status:.Arrived Gate 3 Hours 43 Minutes Late

Departed:
New York/Newark, NJ (EWR - Liberty)
Scheduled:. 7:00 PM
Actual:.10:52 PM
Gate:.C84
Check-in:.Terminal C

Arrived:
San Diego, CA (SAN)
Scheduled:. 9:56 PM
Actual:.1:39 AM (Aug 20)
Gate:.35
Bag Claim/Arrivals:.Terminal 2




While it is unfortunate the flight got cancelled, and your family got stranded, CO tried everything they could to operate the flight. There were severe thunderstorms
and flooding in the greater NYC area, as well as up and down the East coast.



Honestly, what sort of compensation do you think they should have received from Continental? Club access is NEVER going to be given away, and honestly, what would that have given them? Access to some cheese and crackers? -- Thousands of passengers fly through EWR daily. Imagine if each one which was



Newark is not the awful airport you make it out to be. This same situation was a direct result of the weather, and nothing else. Same thing happening at airports up and down the east coast. This is what happens when you fly out in the late afternoon/evening during the summer.
Was it "busier" at EWR? Well, Terminal C is only Continental flights, so obviously all delayed passengers were trying to access the same services.



As the flight got later and later, did your family ever try to get on a different flight? Different routing? Anything? -- Flight 1462 (assuming your family was on 1426) showed it went out with an empty seat, and 40+ standby passengers were cleared onto that flight.



If you (or they) think CO and EWR is so awful, there are six other airport options for flying into the greater NY area, 10 depending where your destination is. There are just as many airlines serving these airports as well. Point is, you don't have to fly CO, nor do you have to fly to EWR.

duchy

Most passengers would rather gamble on crew getting allocated at the 11th hour (if other flights were cancelled there is always the chance one of the crews could be rescheduled onto "your flight" )and sit it out -than have CO give up earlier in the game. When there is a reasonable chance of getting the flight to go even if late rather than battle to rebook with all the WX delayed passengers-it's the lesser of the two evils.

I don't see the relevence of your relative's child's age -unless her mother is also very young (unlikely as the child is nine) or elderly (medically difficult but not impossible) or has some kind of disability that would make what is an irritating but hardly earth-shattering delay in some way extraordinary or threatening to health. Frankly most nine year olds would find it quite cool to be camping out at an airport and regard it as an adventure. All depends on how the adult taking care of them reacts . If they take it in their stride then so will the child-if they act like it's a disaster-so will the child <shrug>

jhayes_1780

It has nothing to do with grammar, it has to do with:

"EwR nightmare..9 yr old niece stuck"...... oh, but she is with her mom

As mentioned above, bad weather put a kink in things last night.

As far as them boarding the plane before the crew, my guess is they were trying speed it up because they did know the pilots were up against the clock.

trm2

We boarded my (delayed) flight before the crew in CLE last night so we could get out quicker, so I'd say there is a good chance that is what they tried in EWR also.

Not that it is helping today with flights delayed for mandatory rest.

Starblazer

I know this probably isn't any help at the moment, but maybe someone in the future might find this useful.... during my Lima trip apparently there were Tornados causing IRROPS in EWR.... a Raddison in Piscataway was taking the vouchers and providing a shuttle.... it only ran once an hour (was about a 30 minute hike on the highway)... but a couple of people and flight crews (TLV) were on it.

The accomidations were nice too.

MileHighGuy

It's a shame we can't give rep points here