TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin United through EWR

Kinda almost off topic but since I have a flight to SXm booked with United it might be slightly on topic

If ANYONE has a flight to SXM through Newark REALLY have a backup plan because they are cancelling MANY flights. Our PVD-EWR-ZRH flight was cancelled two days in a row and we eventually just said screw it and moved on. It's not the long haul flight but the connection to EWR that is being impacted by ATC issues and has been a problem for months. Today United had 68 cancellations in Newark and Rebublic, which does the short hauls for some airlines (United) had 83 more..(United 89 on Friday...86 by Republic ..from/to EWR) .WAAAAY too many flights for ATC to control in that area

We had a great trip planned to Alsace in France..driving from Zurich airport but we could NOT get to EWR...cancelled two days ... so our whole trip is now toast...prepaid expensive car rental, apartment rental, and maybe the flight cost which was significant but "not under our control" BS....

Just an FYI for those that may have alternate posibilities...eliminate any United connection through EWR....we are holding our breath for our January trip to SXM...

We have United booked out of EWR to SXM for November. No back up plan, never got screwed by United (YET!), hopefully they won’t have as many problems in November as not as many people will be traveling as in a summer and no thunderstorms.
Sorry to hear about your messed up plans to Europe. We are flying British Airways in ten days, hopefully it will go smooth. At least the flight won’t be canceled, might be delayed but not canceled as aircraft will be already here from Heathrow and they usually don’t cancel out of there.

Wow, so sorry to hear about your cancelled trip, Boucharda..

I should add weather was not an issue at all....second flight was cancelled 15 hours before scheduled depart. It is a quantity of flights issue in the NY/NJ area and AC cannot deal with it. Only plus for future flights is MAYBE less will be flying once the summer is over BUT a few weeks ago this was their response

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav...ations-newark-ceo-faa-blame/70361319007/

Thanks for the link, hope things will improve.

Another bad day with United connection Airline Republic already cancelling 105 flights at Newark and United 73...and this is only at 9am.

I can't understand how this has been allowed for months....They oversell flights (United) with the full knowledge that they are overwhelming an airport (ATC) and then cancel and blame ATC

Sorry for the rant....I will slink back into my shell

Edit: PVD-EWR cancelled again today...three days in a row and glad we didn't jump through the hoops and triy (again) to rebook everything for today

boucharda--didn't they offer you any routing on a different airline??

First cancel they got me on the same route the next day....when that was cancelled I sensed a trend and didn't want to repeat the grief again and after two hour wait I said I would like to pursue a refund and the agent was very nice and said she would "request" it. So we will see. (and it was cancelled for the third day)

I don't think their plan is to move anyone to another airline....at least it was not offered to me.

Newark today United 85 cancellations...United connection airline Republic...151 (77% of all their flights)

Note to self...stay away from EWR at all costs

We have flown out of EWR the past 20 years since it has more nonstop flights to SXM than other airlines in my area. Because the pandemic caused airlines to provide incentives to pilots to retire early, there aret not enough pilots. Next the pandemic caused the flight controllers to retire early and delayed the introduction of a new computer system for flight control. All of this added to current delays/ cancellations at EWR. United is reducing the number of flights out of EWR to avoid cancellations. I used to be able to fly nonstop to SXM on some week days in low season not this year only nonstop is on the weekend in September.
All of these things produce the current situation.

Things should start to smooth out by mid year hopefully.

boucharda--I don't remember the statute now, but I thought there was a law that said that they had to offer you connections on another airline, if available. I would have researched it myself and ASKED, anyway.

Sorry to hear of all the problems. We have used United nonstop EWR for most of our recent trips without problems including this past January. When we do, we have to drive 3 hours and do the Stay/park/fly thing. Decided to use Spirit BWI - FLL - SXM for our upcoming trip in September ($500pp). We've heard horror stories about Spirit but hoping for the best.

we fly UA to EU next week, but luckily through IAD...we often fly through EWR, but thankfully not this time

Not to beat a dead horse... perhaps consider Acela to EWR airport station connecting to the Air Train which is included in the Acela ticket price
I have done this from DC and it worked for me.