QRC3288

thx for starting this thread, I was going to post something similar after just getting back from EWR. I also sat in J class. A few observations:

EWR itself: -
Sucked. Nearly missed my flight due to my first and last ride on the Air Train. I took Amtrak to EWR station, then Air Train. What a disaster. I spent 35+ minutes from the EWR Air Train station getting to CX in Terminal B....the last leg of which involved me running outside with my luggage from Terminal C to Terminal B, due to a lack of Air Trains after having to transfer. I'm not sure if this is par for the course, EWR just giving the middle finger to CX, or a one-off, but I got to CX check-in ~50-55 minutes before departure and nearly missed the flight despite arriving at Air Train a full 90 minutes before departure. I am not an EWR regular and have never departed EWR this late before (nor had I tried Air Train), but lesson learned. Car or taxi to the airport going forward. Fwiw CX appears to be the only flight departing this late and at least yesterday, NJ/NY Port Authority decided screw CX passengers.

Ground staff: +
Excellent, although it seems like they'd gone through war. Granted I arrived 50 minutes before departure and sweating from just having run from Terminal C. Unlike the OP I didn't see any lines because I barely made the flight, so I suspect if you arrive 2-3 hours in advance you might run into the problems the OP had. I was also handled by the station manager. But it was nice to be greeted with "Mr. QRC, we've been waiting for you". I was then escorted through security (nobody was there), and escorted to the lounge, and finally escorted to the gate at the very end. All-in a great experience. I suspect they don't have too many DMs, or perhaps the staff there are trying to do their best after a disastrous first week. But my impression of the ground staff was they really were going out of their way to be nice to me.

Lounge +
Pretty much what the OP says. This was my first time in the Galleries lounge at EWR...thought it was hands down superior to the F lounge at JFK. Not much to add just it's superior in every way I could see.

Flight: +
Extremely low pax numbers. As a result we had great service. All J pax were seated in the front section, which at first I was disappointed with (I tried to move to the back mini-cabin), but it turned out to be superb. Because we all were in the front section service was highly attentive, similar to what I'm used to on CX F. Drinks were constantly refilled, FAs coming down the aisle offering bread refills, etc it was very personalized and sharp. #s were ~20/40 in J, <50% in PEY, and ~60% in EY.

I had an excellent crew, but this isn't an EWR thing - they're rostered out of HKG. Luck of the draw.

Catering: -
I'll update the meal thread separately. ex-EWR in J is the standard late-night supper thing with a light meal option offered. Breakfast before landing. For dinner, two main courses in J, while the light meal had the soup in a cup thing and a salad with chicken. While CX nailed the soup as they usually do, the chicken on the salad was nearly inedible and was far worse than the salad I recently ate to LAX and back from SFO a month ago. I have been flying North America so much lately I feel like these anecdotes hold some merit.

I will note the catering on this flight - particularly breakfast - are subpar compared to ex-LAX and ex-SFO late night departures. For breakfast there were no bagels, no skim milk (2% was the best they had), and no Odwalla/fresh orange juice as I'm used to. CX usually nails the midnight departure/morning arrival breakfasts with ex-North America flights and EWR was worse than what I'm used to in J. If this is a downgrade overall on CX it happened in the last 3 weeks since I last flew CX873 ex-SFO (when I received the standard J class breakfast catering), otherwise it's an EWR-specific catering issue.



All in I'll probably fly ex-EWR again, but won't be taking the Air Train. Other than that it worked out fine.