I had some first-hand experience with the recent craziness involving Newark Liberty International Airport (KEWR). Living just a half hour away, I have grown familiar with travel to and from EWR, and most of my airline experience has been positive. I have marveled at the fact that I can pack up my bags, drive to the airport, and then find myself emerging from the cabin door on the other side of the planet.
That said, as a family, we’ve not had great karma after several tries at a Caribbean vacation over the last few years. First, my wife, Leslie, and her mom scheduled one of their annual girls’ visits, this time to St. Lucia, only to be foiled at the 11th hour by an expired passport. Not the airline’s fault. Then, last fall, we were packed and ready for a family vacation with our two sons to the Dominican Republic. The weather was calm and sunny in the DR, but a hurricane closed off our path to our point of departure in Miami, and there were no seats available for several days. Strike two.
So, it was with some trepidation that Leslie and I recently committed to a visit of our own to St. Lucia to celebrate our 26th wedding anniversary (Our 25th anniversary was also jinxed. On that very day, I enjoyed open heart surgery. I’m fine now.). Travel dates to St. Lucia on Delta Air Lines were outbound on April 24, returning on April 30/May 1 with a 1 am arrival time at Newark.
Now, some of you may have heard that EWR has been experiencing some operational challenges over the past couple of weeks. One of its main, parallel north-south runways is closed for construction, and a recent handing off of a large swath of approach responsibilities to Philadelphia has combined with some staffing woes to make a mess of things (See Russ Niles’s update on the details.)
Nevertheless, our 5:58 am flight was still listed as “on time” when we got ourselves out the door at 2:30 am. The departure was uneventful, and after a short layover at Atlanta Hartsfield International (ATL), we boarded our flight for St. Lucia. That’s where the first glitch appeared, and it had nothing to do with EWR’s traffic woes. The first officer had forgotten to install his passport in his back pocket. As the captain informed us, his frantic wife was headed our way to save the day. The result was a manageable 40-minute delay and we still got to the resort in time for dinner.
Takeaway #1: the crew was totally transparent about the cause of the delay, and passengers I overheard all acknowledged their appreciation for the candor. On arrival in St. Lucia, I would not have blamed the first officer if he busied himself in the cockpit rearranging the socks in his overnight bag while the passengers deplaned. But there he was, standing at the exit door taking his medicine with a smile. Courage under fire.
Now, let’s skip over our stay at the resort, except to say it was really, really, nice.
Our return journey on April 30 started after lunch with a shuttle to the airport for a 3:19 pm departure for Atlanta. All good – no notice of any delays, despite some scary accounting of what was going on at Newark. After smoothly clearing customs at ATL, we boarded our Boeing 737-900 for the 10:50 pm flight to EWR. According to the pretend (passenger-seat) Primary Flight Display (which is actually pretty cool), we even had a tailwind.
We were about 20 minutes from landing when I caught the first whiff of trouble. I could see we had entered a hold, and the “time to destination” field switched from about 15 minutes to two hours, 20 minutes. Uh oh. I hoped it was a mistake.
Two racetracks later, my heart sank when I saw that the “Destination” field had changed from Newark to Atlanta. Any hope that it was a mistake melted away when I saw that we were southwest-bound, and had long passed what would have been the turn back on the holding pattern.
Then the captain delivered the bad news clearly and concisely. He explained that Newark was currently closed; all available surrounding airports’ ramps were filled with overflow traffic; the only hope of getting into Newark was trusting to an indefinite holding. He said, “We don’t have the gas for that.”
Upon returning to ATL, Delta informed us our flight (DA2552) was “rescheduled” for 8:30 the next morning. Though some passengers opted to try for a hotel for the expected six-hour wait, most spent the rest of the night trying to be as comfortable as possible at the gate. We boarded on time, but there were a few more ground-stop delays, and the captain assured us we were being given top priority by ATC based on our ordeal. We actually took off around 10:30 am, arriving at Newark about 12:30 pm – with an unexpected and exciting landing on 6,800-foot Runway 29. We were 12 hours behind schedule, but happy to be home.
Even so, our angst was not over, yet. Leslie’s sister and brother-in-law, who had been staying at our house, were scheduled to fly home from Newark to Las Vegas at 4:55 the next day after a long, grueling visit to move their son and get him set up with a new job and an apartment. We all held our breath and kept FlightAware’s ‘Where’s my plane’ function up on our phones. Cutting to the chase – their flight departed on time and landed early in Vegas.
Bottom line for me? I’m focused on the fact that after years of false starts, we finally got our Caribbean vacation.
