Originally Posted by
deskover54
It's very insightful, but still leaves me scratching my head. I got to New York a lot, and it's way easier to get into the city from EWR than JFK. JFK is 1:10 on the train. EWR is like 40 mins on the NJ Transit.
The article sites actors - do they care which airport? (I honestly don't know). It talks about flying F...well, they could have kept 3 cabin on the EWR routes, and could still bring it back. But that point seemed more to be about aircraft config than airport.
I'm genuinely curious if people going to Manhattan really prefer JFK over EWR. I certainly don't, but maybe I'm an anomaly? I prefer LGA to JFK, it's 30 mins into the city!
I live in Manhattan (on the UWS). Theoretically, it is easier for me to fly in and out of EWR (geographically closer) than out of JFK. However, I avoid EWR like the Plague.
IME (and mileage varies widely on this, obviously), traffic heading out to EWR is just as bad as heading out to JFK, so that is a wash. Coming back from EWR, depending on the time of day, can be much worse, so unless you time it exactly right, and hope that the flight arrives exactly as scheduled (and that, on an international flight, customs is not an unmitigated disaster), coming in from EWR can take forever and a day.
There are also fewer cabs coming in from EWR to Manhattan. What there are are (obviously) Jersey-based, and like to play games with Manhattanites. Manhattan-based car services charge more to go to/from EWR than to go to JFK (still better than those damnable Jersey cabs, though).
Then there is the EWR experience itself. JFK needs some work. EWR is a disaster. Dirty, dingy, overcrowded, poorly managed. And that is as an F/J passenger. The lounges are a joke. My husband once said to me that the BA lounge in TXL, the one everyone makes fun of for being a time capsule, is an oasis of tranquility, with decent quality teas, good coffee making machines, and constant cleaning. It never feels crowded, the staff keeps it clean and tidy, and it feels like a sweet, quaint way to say good-bye to Berlin.
Go to any J lounge in EWR, and it's like the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Someone is always yelling at some poor staff member, finding a clean spot -- scratch that -- finding an empty spot at which to set down your things becomes an ever more stressful challenge. The minimal offerings are of questionable quality and look like they have been sitting out a bit too long. The bathrooms too often look like they were, perhaps, given a quick once-over in the morning, and then were opened to a frat house for the rest of the day (if that's the bathroom in a J lounge, what on earth do the bathrooms in the rest of EWR look like?).
And then there are the interminable lines, too often unrelieved by status or class of service. No real fault of the airline -- it's just the lack of personnel at EWR that makes the lines so unrelentingly long and the experience feel like a cross between the last flights out of Cuba when Batista fell and checking into minimum security prison.
I realize that I exaggerate (but not by a lot). Flying in and out of EWR is an unpleasant experience for most of us who live in the area and have a choice. It has made UA a non-factor in making travel plans.