I took the AirTrain last week for the first time. A few observations:

On the outbound:

• If you're in midtown, the E train out to Sutphin Avenue is awesome - about a 30 minute ride
• Signs for the AirTrain are clearly visible in the from the subway
• The AirTrain station at Jamaica is a cool new building. But it looks like they wasted a couple million dollars on what's nothing more than an elevated platform that doesn't connect to the subway and doesn't connect to the LIRR.
• It's about 7 minutes from Jamaica to the terminals. Much faster than the bus was from Howard Beach (up to 30 min), and faster than the EWR monorail which is agonizingly slow.

On the return:

• Elevator from the road-level up to the train was not working. Had to walk 3 flights of stairs - no biggie for me but might be for others.
• There are hand-made, laminated signs in the windows of the train which tell you if the train is going to Jamaica or to Howard Beach.
• The scrolling message board in the Airtrain tells you that you'll pay the fare when exiting in Jamaica.
• Signs for the subway are not visible when you leave the AirTrain station.
• If you hit the E train late-night (it was 9:30pm) the train runs local and adds about 10 min.