NYC area delays (EWR specifically)

RyanB

RyanB

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Just got home from a trip to the Big Apple. Picked my poison and used EWR. I’ve monitored their status off and on for a week or two and I’ve noticed that they’ll throw up traffic management programs for what seems to be no apparent reason. Of the main three, EWR is the only one that seems to have constant departure and arrival delays. For example, here is their excuse tonight.


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Calm winds, good vis and high clouds. Seems like a picturesque night to be flying, but apparently they’re having delays due to weather. What gives?

Fortunately, both my outbound and return flights were early morning, before the cat had the chance to hit the fan, so no issues going or coming. :fcross:
 
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The TM (Traffic Management) people are using their SWAP (Severe Weather Avoidance Plan) procedures. Although the weather might be good at EWR itself, I’m guessing one or more of their departure gates is being shut down due to severe weather, limiting their ability to depart aircraft.
 
Not just EWR. LGA gets their share too. Even HPN to the north of the city. My experience in and out of JFK not so as it's mostly international there.
 
Sluggo63 said:
The TM (Traffic Management) people are using their SWAP (Severe Weather Avoidance Plan) procedures. Although the weather might be good at EWR itself, I’m guessing one or more of their departure gates is being shut down due to severe weather, limiting their ability to depart aircraft.
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Someone else suggested that over in chat, but radar didn’t show anything more than moderate intensity precip out to the west, so I can’t imagine that being any conflict.
 
Ryanb said:
Someone else suggested that over in chat, but radar didn’t show anything more than moderate intensity precip out to the west, so I can’t imagine that being any conflict.
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It's a CYA excuse to not have to ponie up $$ for delayed flights. Just like when the airline requests that ATC issue a ground stop for a hub city but only for their airline.

"Sorry, it's out of our hands, we aren't obligated to reimburse you if it's weather or ATC related"
 
I got royally screwed by a Newark connection once. I'm up in Rochester, NY. It's snowing there, there's like eight inches of snow on the ground. I figure this might be a problem for my flight. Nope. They can handle it. The issue is Newark is so screwed up because of rain that my connection is hosed. No problem, they can book me into Orlando instead of Tampa (I was going to SnF so it's about equidistant). I get on my laptop and rebook the rental car from one airport to the other (losing my good rate, oh well). Then I check the new flight. Nope, it's hosed up as well.

Where CAN I get to. IAD. Fine IAD is home, can you get me out first thing the next morning, I've got a board meeting at 1PM. Nope.
Finally got a different airline flight via CLT. Still into Orlando, but I'd already resigned myself to go that way.
 
This was enough to delay my flight almost 4 hours yesterday. Once we got south of Ithaca it was clear and a million

mZSX103.png
 
jordane93 said:
This was enough to delay my flight almost 4 hours yesterday. Once we got south of Ithaca it was clear and a million

mZSX103.png
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Dang. That must’ve been earlier in the day. When I looked at radar at the time that I posted this thread around 11pm, it was only paining light to moderate precip and all was well west of the NYC area.
 
Yeah, when the NYC area is under SWAP we get lots of questions from passengers about the delays, especially since it's sometimes not immediately obvious where the weather is that's causing the problem. The airspace is so congested that all it takes is a small segment of it to get boned up to affect everything else. Doesn't have to be thunderstorms either - certain wind conditions can cause less than favorable runway configurations, and that can slow everything down as well.
 
Ryanb said:
Dang. That must’ve been earlier in the day. When I looked at radar at the time that I posted this thread around 11pm, it was only paining light to moderate precip and all was well west of the NYC area.
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Yea and also mainline will delay the regional jets before their planes. Whenever there is precip within 200 miles of LGA, they freak out and go into a ground stop.
 
It's not just the NY Metros, it's the entire east coast. DCA is notorious. IAD is generally better. PHL can be a problem (and has gotten worse since AA added flights).

One of the good things about living along the northeast corridor is that Amtrak is an option.

I came back into PHL from BCN a couple of weeks ago. As soon as I got to the gate for the connecting flight to DCA, the flight canceled (regional jet). It was SWAP for the route. And I got a notice that AA was rerouting me to DCA. With a connection at LGA. The next morning at 5:20 AM.

It took no time to choose my option: I headed for the SEPTA connection to 30th street and picked up the NE Regional train. I got home less than an hour later than my original flight time.

Having options is nice 'cause the airlines do as little as possible to help you.
 
It was definitely SWAP - I was flying out of my Class D last night and heard a note about the SWAP on the ATIS around 8pm. A quick look at Foreflight showed the front about 100 miles to the west - definitely enough to cause a jam up at EWR for any flight heading west.
 
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