What’s the best airport to use for Lakewood, NJ?

[Sam Finkelstein]

One of the big cons of Lakewood is the fact that there are no international airports nearby. You have EWR an hour north and PHL about 1 ¼ southwest.

EWR is obviously a bigger airport with more flights (and United if you have their status), but if PHL has the flight I need, they’re my first choice for a few reasons:

• Fewer tolls to/from the airport
• Parking is substantially cheaper
• Traffic to the airport is much more predictable
• The airport is very quiet and security is quick
• I’ve never experienced a delay due to congestion

Yet, PHL is not even on the radar of most people I know. What am I missing?

[Euclid]

Authority?

[Euclid]

One of the big cons of Lakewood is the fact that there are no international airports nearby. You have EWR an hour north and PHL about 1 ¼ southwest.

EWR is obviously a bigger airport with more flights (and United if you have their status), but if PHL has the flight I need, they’re my first choice for a few reasons:

• Fewer tolls to/from the airport
• Parking is substantially cheaper
• Traffic to the airport is much more predictable
• The airport is very quiet and security is quick
• I’ve never experienced a delay due to congestion

Yet, PHL is not even on the radar of most people I know. What am I missing?

Because it's AA's hub

cc Dan

[Sam Finkelstein]

Authority?

Fixed, thanks.

[Sam Finkelstein]

Because it's AA's hub

cc Dan

I flew AA almost exclusively the past several years and never had an issue. Mostly between hubs (ORD, LAX).

[YitzyS]

One of the big cons of Lakewood is the fact that there are no international airports nearby. You have EWR an hour north and PHL about 1 ¼ southwest.

EWR is obviously a bigger airport with more flights (and United if you have their status), but if PHL has the flight I need, they’re my first choice for a few reasons:

• Fewer tolls to/from the airport
• Parking is substantially cheaper
• Traffic to the airport is much more predictable
• The airport is very quiet and security is quick
• I’ve never experienced a delay due to congestion

Yet, PHL is not even on the radar of most people I know. What am I missing?

Although I love certain aspects of PHL (parking, for one), to me it is a much bigger ordeal than EWR. First, it's more like 55 minutes to EWR and 1 hour 25 minutes to PHL, and that extra half an hour of driving time makes all the difference. You show up at the airport fatigued from the drive, and it makes the whole experience much more daunting.

In general, I won't nix a flight if it's from PHL, but I definitely seek out EWR flights first, even if it costs a little more.

I also have a pet peeve when certain family members ask for a ride to or from the airport and their flight is from PHL because it was marginally cheaper than EWR. Is an extra hour of my driving time not worth something? /rant

[aygart]

The best airport experience in the area is TTN. I have flown Frontier just for that on occasion.

[knowitall]

It also depends heavily where in lkwd you live. For many ppl, PHL is 90 mins and EWR is 55 mins. For me PHL is only 10 minutes further. I prefer PHL because you can park cheaply on site and walk right into the terminal. If I go to EWR for more than 1 day then I would be parking off site and shuttling, which always seems to take forever.

[knowitall]

The best airport experience in the area is TTN. I have flown Frontier just for that on occasion.

Yeah, I once made it door to door from DTWs frum area to lkwd in under 4 hours through TTN.

[YitzyS]

The best airport experience in the area is TTN. I have flown Frontier just for that on occasion.

I was just about to write that TTN is the best airport. But on the flipside, I avoid it BECAUSE of Frontier. I once had my flight canceled and the next flight was 48 hours later... (ended up renting cars and driving to PHL)

[Sam Finkelstein]

The best airport experience in the area is TTN. I have flown Frontier just for that on occasion.

Agreed. I flew F9 in the summer with no luggage and it was incredible. (My office is 30 minutes from TTN.) But let’s be honest they’re not a major contender with their schedule.

Also, I know people who got seriously messed over by delays, etc.

[Sam Finkelstein]

It also depends heavily where in lkwd you live. For many ppl, PHL is 90 mins and EWR is 55 mins. For me PHL is only 10 minutes further. I prefer PHL because you can park cheaply on site and walk right into the terminal. If I go to EWR for more than 1 day then I would be parking off site and shuttling, which always seems to take forever.

Which part of Lakewood is 90 minutes away? All you need is access to the 195.

[Dan]

I flew AA almost exclusively the past several years and never had an issue.

@michael2500

[herb]

Although I love certain aspects of PHL (parking, for one), to me it is a much bigger ordeal than EWR. First, it's more like 55 minutes to EWR and 1 hour 25 minutes to PHL, and that extra half an hour of driving time makes all the difference. You show up at the airport fatigued from the drive, and it makes the whole experience much more daunting.

In general, I won't nix a flight if it's from PHL, but I definitely seek out EWR flights first, even if it costs a little more.

I also have a pet peeve when certain family members ask for a ride to or from the airport and their flight is from PHL because it was marginally cheaper than EWR. Is an extra hour of my driving time not worth something? /rant

+1

[herb]

The best airport experience in the area is TTN. I have flown Frontier just for that on occasion.

+100 it's like flying private almost!

[YitzyS]

The best airport experience in the area is TTN. I have flown Frontier just for that on occasion.

Repost alert

It is almost worth flying frontier to use TTN

ETA: Actually not a repost, but a setirah. From the raisha, it is muchach that it IS worth flying from TTN. But from the seifa, it's muchach that it's only ALMOST worth flying from TTN. Is there a chisurei mechserah here?

[michael2500]

@michael2500

I hate you Daniel 😡.

Yes Dan is right.  AA sucks don't know how you haven't had a bad experience.  I just flew them Sunday JFK-MIA on what was supposed to be a 3 hour flight.  They ended up diverting to RSW and the flight ended up being a total of 7 hours to MIA.

Then the next day my routing was supposed to be MIA-CLE-JFK  (a layover in CLE to pickup my son)  but of course they cancelled a fully sold out flight.  All flights were sold out to all hubs and including DL and UA so they ended up rerouting me MIA-JFK-CLE-JFK.  Yes you read that right JFK twice in the same day.  Oh then they delay the JFK-CLE flight by 1.5 hours, land 1 hour later in CLE but because they are understaffed they don't have a gate to go to at CLE since the AA gates were occupied.  Plane ends up staying on the taxiway for 2 hours until the gate clears.  Luckily the plane and crew is the same for the CLE-JFK return so just exited the plane and reboarded 20 min. later and had to buy my ex-wife a refundable  ticket to get her past security with my son since there was no time to exit security and pick him up by checkin at this point.  Basically end up back in JFK at 9:15 pm after being in airports since 6:30am.  Bottom line:  Horrible airline with terrible OPS.  Only thing they are good for is clearing T-72 out if you're platinum-pro and above on their JFK-MIA widebody route.

[Sam Finkelstein]

I hate you Daniel 😡.

Yes Dan is right.  AA sucks don't know how you haven't had a bad experience.  I just flew them Sunday JFK-MIA on what was supposed to be a 3 hour flight.  They ended up diverting to RSW and the flight ended up being a total of 7 hours to MIA.

Then the next day my routing was supposed to be MIA-CLE-JFK  (a layover in CLE to pickup my son)  but of course they cancelled a fully sold out flight.  All flights were sold out to all hubs and including DL and UA so they ended up rerouting me MIA-JFK-CLE-JFK.  Yes you read that right JFK twice in the same day.  Oh then they delay the JFK-CLE flight by 1.5 hours, land 1 hour later in CLE but because they are understaffed they don't have a gate to go to at CLE since the AA gates were occupied.  Plane ends up staying on the taxiway for 2 hours until the gate clears.  Luckily the plane and crew is the same for the CLE-JFK return so just exited the plane and reboarded 20 min. later and had to buy my ex-wife a refundable  ticket to get her past security with my son since there was no time to exit security and pick him up by checkin at this point.  Basically end up back in JFK at 9:15 pm after being in airports since 6:30am.  Bottom line:  Horrible airline with terrible OPS.  Only thing they are good for is clearing T-72 out if you're platinum-pro and above on their JFK-MIA widebody route.

Yikes! That sounded awful, sorry you had to go through that!

I personally had terrible luck on SWA; hours of delays every trip without fail. I need more of their comp vouchers like a hole in the head.

Maybe AA is good for me because I fly between hubs with lots of capacity (PHL-ORD accounts for the vast majority of my flying).

[chff]

Which part of Lakewood is 90 minutes away? All you need is access to the 195.

From the south side it's 90+ minutes (it's 20+ minutes simply to get to the I-195)

[yelped]

EWR always made the most sense for me. I have family in Linden so just park in the driveway and take an Uber or ride with family, and United is much friendlier/convenient than AA usually. Also 55 minutes vs 1:25 from most of Lakewood is a big difference. Though, if you live in Jackson, especially out north west then you are halfway to PHL already. I do wish we get some of the bigger airlines in ACY or TTY, though (was never in those airports, but heard it's great).