EWR first impressions
Driving into EWR is very easy compared to JFK (coming from Eastern PA, thank heavens.) CX is located in level 3 of Terminal B, arrived very early so not many cars.
Went in, since it's only a J-Y+-Y configuration there are only 2 Business counters, PE counter, and 6 Y counters, and hence the first problem. There are only two lines (I'm not counting the self-checked baggage line), 1 line for all J/Y+/MPC members and another for Y. Luckily when I arrived there are only two people ahead of me, but I asked the counter agent if the line gets long and he said: "yeah, sometimes it's longer than Y, isn't that crazy?" ..... There were only two people ahead of me, but it seems all the counters have problems that I can overheard: "Help! Won't print out boarding pass", "Help! Something's wrong with this, I can't check-in", "Help! The seat isn't freed and I don't know how to free one up for him", etc. Each pax that I can observe literally spent at least an extended amount of time that one is used to check-in for CX flight. The poor supervisor of the counters is running from one counter to another helping each help request. I waited at least 15 minutes till my turn. One security problem I have observed and I told the supervisor about it: a group had an issue because one of their companion reserved the ticket with a different first name (western name) but his passport shows the chinese-transliterated name. He took out his license and "proved" that he is the same person on the passport, his license is the Americanized name. The CX agent said: "Ok, I'll let you go, I don't know if TSA will, just do what you did to me and if they don't let you in come back to me, and I'll go talk to them." I know CX aims to please but isn't this the basic thing that they should be trained to NEVER allowed to do? Especially with what happened lately.... The supervisor upon hearing my side simply told me "thanks for letting me know" without even asking me who it was, and just rushed away to help another HELP call from one of the counter agents.... Went in, used the BA Galleries Lounge which the sign says "First Class, OW Emerald" so I take it this is their special lounge for First Class and Emeralds only? Anyway, the lounge is big (compared to JFK BA F) and more selections. Sandwiches, fruits, variety of snacks and candies, a very good lounge. The only tease is their dinning room is for BA pax only, CX pax need not apply. Ok, that's it. Hope everyone else have a much better experience than I did. |
Originally Posted by Cathay Boy
(Post 22494304)
One security problem I have observed and I told the supervisor about it: a group had an issue because one of their companion reserved the ticket with a different first name (western name) but his passport shows the chinese-transliterated name. He took out his license and "proved" that he is the same person on the passport, his license is the Americanized name.
This is not an isolated instance: many countries don't recognize US Court approved name changes. I bet the name on the ticket not only matched the official Government ID he presented for travel (as required by US regulations), but also the name of the credit card used to purchase the ticket and the Secure Flight Passenger Data upon which the TSA cleared him for travel (all PNRs are scrubbed by the TSA under the Secure Flight Program). I am sure the supervisor thanked you out of customer service courtesy and did nothing, as nothing had to be done. |
Originally Posted by hillrider
(Post 22494456)
How is that a security issue?
This is not an isolated instance: many countries don't recognize US Court approved name changes. I bet the name on the ticket not only matched the official Government ID he presented for travel (as required by US regulations), but also the name of the credit card used to purchase the ticket and the Secure Flight Passenger Data upon which the TSA cleared him for travel (all PNRs are scrubbed by the TSA under the Secure Flight Program). I am sure the supervisor thanked you out of customer service courtesy and did nothing, as nothing had to be done. |
Was there any congee offered at the BA Galleries?
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What is the problem with security? Even if the ticket match the passport what does that guarantee?
In Europe and many other places to travel internationally you may not need a passport. |
CathyBoy
Thanks for posting. How was the flight itself? |
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)
Originally Posted by correctioncx
What is the problem with security? Even if the ticket match the passport what does that guarantee?
In Europe and many other places to travel internationally you may not need a passport. |
Originally Posted by kaka
(Post 22500153)
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B142 Safari/8536.25)
But you need a proof of ur actual name, which the eu id card does give proof Also op did not actually know the full Story?? Maybe the other Id which may be hkid shows the Correct name and this is accepted for border control in hkia. However it is not acceptable form of id for tsa. |
Originally Posted by PaulaJK
(Post 22499601)
CathyBoy
Thanks for posting. How was the flight itself? that's it |
Originally Posted by Cathay Boy
(Post 22494304)
One security problem I have observed and I told the supervisor about it: a group had an issue because one of their companion reserved the ticket with a different first name (western name) but his passport shows the chinese-transliterated name. He took out his license and "proved" that he is the same person on the passport, his license is the Americanized name. The CX agent said: "Ok, I'll let you go, I don't know if TSA will, just do what you did to me and if they don't let you in come back to me, and I'll go talk to them."
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I'm due to fly this later this year, but in steerage (with the family). I'm curious, what is open past security near those gates at Newark? It looks like CX is the last passenger flight out of Newark by a good couple of hours.
Thx, B |
Originally Posted by global_b
(Post 22510414)
I'm due to fly this later this year, but in steerage (with the family). I'm curious, what is open past security near those gates at Newark? It looks like CX is the last passenger flight out of Newark by a good couple of hours.
Thx, B http://www.travelnerd.com/airports/n...l-b/40/lounges |
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. |
Let me know next time if any of you have any questions. EWR Air Train is notorious of late and cutting availability with no prior warnings. Unless you have hours to burn never use the Air Train. I usually do cab myself if no one else can drop me off.
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Originally Posted by Cathay Boy
(Post 22519250)
Let me know next time if any of you have any questions. EWR Air Train is notorious of late and cutting availability with no prior warnings. Unless you have hours to burn never use the Air Train. I usually do cab myself if no one else can drop me off.
In hindsight it helped me get a good 5 minute burst of exercise pre-flight, but yea I think a car or cab is a necessity next time I take that flight |
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