Originally Posted by
nova08
If you were in A, then it must have been a UAX flt.
Express ops are spread out over two piers in A (legacy CO and legacy UA) and parts of C. It's a bit of a mess.
Originally Posted by
channa
We should be happy there is a bus. Years ago, you used to have to exit security, AirTrain over, and then re-clear security.
While the bus system at EWR is far behind airports like PHL (I can't believe PHL exceeds in anything) and even IAD (again, that feels like a bizarre thing to say) EWR is constrained by its infrastructure. The airport wasn't really designed to handle terminal to terminal domestic connections, compared to IAD and PHL which were either designed to handle these types of ops, or were renovated for this purpose. And the PANYNJ isn't exactly the fastest moving agency out there.
The bus is better than having to transfer via the landside AirTrain, but it's definitely an area for improvement. There's a big master-plan for the redevelopment of the A concourse that will probably be realized in the year 250982308234 and, in the last version I saw, included a train system on the airside.
This isn't, at all, a "CO vs UA" thing. UA management wants nothing more than for the PANYNJ to allow for them to have seamless ops in EWR.
No airport in the Northeast is great for Mainline // Express transfers. It's just a fact of life for those of us that live here and/or commute here.
And if you know you'll be transferring terminals in EWR I'd plan on allowing an hour +. Just like I'd recommend doing in PHL or IAD.