I just had the opportunity to take the Airtrain from the Hertz rental car dropoff to T7 at JFK. I am writing this not so much to rant, but to warn any future travelers about the delays and third world experience on this train.
First of all, I don’t remember the last time I flew from JFK, but I do go to Newark periodically and I am familiar with their train. I am not going to pick apart the cleanliness, or aesthetics, after all this is New York.
On Sunday, August 11, I returned my rental car to Hertz around 1240 pm and was scheduled for a 250 pm flight. I figured I was arriving earlier than necessary, but traffic was better than expected. The check in for the rental car was smooth and I was directed to go onto the airtrain, which was a short walk from the rental area.
I guess we were lucky that the escalators were working, however the sign said there is a train every 10 minutes when in fact there was a 13 minute wait for a train. Once it arrived, the train was completely filled and there were several people pushing to get onto the train. My wife and I squeezed in and managed to push our way further into the non air conditioned train. We then observed this scenario played over again for each stop, which seemingly took forever to allow people to get off and on. As our stop got closer, we moved close to the door for the stop at T7. Once the train did get to T7, of course there was a woman boarding wheeling 2 large suitcases, one with each hand plowing onto the train and not allowing anyone to get off. The conductor tried to close the doors and others were pushing and shoving around this woman to get off the train. Eventually we were able to push our way off the train although I had to kick at the doors twice to keep them from closing in on me.
Once off the train, it was a fairly sane walk to the terminal, but I looked at my watch and realized it took 35 minutes from car rental drop off to the terminal, which is unacceptable.
I do realize that JFK is an international airport and the US has no money to improve its infrastructure, but even compared to Newark this was an abomination. I write this to anyone reading to warn people to leave extra time to return a rental car and for those traveling with the elderly, disabled, or small children, to definitely consider taking a taxi from the car rental terminal to the air terminal.