Left in Tucson - EWK: You Can't Get There From Here


3/7/2011:  Tucson is blessed to have the most wonderful, easy to get around in international airport in the country.  From the moment I first stepped off the plane at Tucson International Airport; I felt that I had been transported back to a 1960’s flying experience.  There is only one terminal, everything is clean and spanking new, the staff is friendly and courteous, and everyone speaks and understands English.  Even the parking attendants who take your ticket and parking fee make eye contact while passing pleasantries.  The entire experience is an amazing pheonom for someone who is more accustomed to the brutality to your senses commonly experienced at EWK and other large regional airports.   I was sure I was going to love living here.

Once we were settled into our new lives in Tucson, I soon learned the downside to having such a friendly and quaint airport just minutes away from our house.  THERE ARE NO DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM TUCSON TO EWK.   Just a few months after moving to town, Continental, whose hub is EWK, discontinued the only two direct flights from Tucson to EWK for lack of interest.  It seems there are not enough people in Tucson with a desire to fly to New Jersey on a regular basis to make this a profitable route for Continental or any of the airlines.   My options are:  1) take a connecting flight from Tucson to Phoenix, a 30-minute flight and 100 miles north by car, to connect with a flight to EWK; take a red-eye evening flight that arrives at 6 AM in EWK and includes a connection in LA, Vegas, Salt Lake City, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Atlanta or Chicago-O’Hare.   Regardless of the option selected, I lose an entire day in traveling, which includes a couple of time changes.  No matter how hard I try to avoid confronting any of the usual airline travel travails, the odds are against me.  If I do end up having an uneventful trip to or from NJ, I consider it a special blessing. 

For today's trip, I avoided the most common sin; making my reservations more than 3 weeks in advance and risking some sort of unforeseen event that causes me to change my schedule and rebook, incurring a change fee plus an increase in the airfare.  As usual, the red-eye flights were the most attractively priced, but who wants to spend their first in town as a zombie? So, I  opted to pay a little extra for a flight that only required me to awake at 3 AM to board a plan that was departing from Tucson to LA at 6:35 AM.  It allowed me an hour and half leeway between landing and boarding my connection to EWK, which would cover me for any flight delays, and possibly getting lost in LA searching for my departure gate.  All went according to plan on the Tucson end. The airport shuttle service picked me up on time – 4:15 AM, I got to the airport, checked my baggage and got through security, which was completely empty at 5 AM, without a hitch.  The flight from Tucson to LA was pleasant enough and got into LA just a few minutes before 7 AM, LA time.  I had a bit of a hike to another terminal to get to my gate, but overall I was feeling pretty confident that all was going fine.  AT 7:25 AM, we got the word:  Maintenance problems with our plane would delay our flight a couple of hours and maybe more.  The day was shot.   At 10:30 AM we were given the option to get booked on a 3:30 PM flight due to arrive in EWK at 11:37 PM.  That meant that with a two-hour drive from Newark to Toms River in South Jersey, I would reach my intended destination around 3 AM the following day.   
I should have made reservations for the red eye.  I would have at least been able to sleep a few more hours.   Continental was generous and gave us lunch vouchers which did not pay for even the cheapest lunch and beverage on any menu in the terminal.  I whiled away the hours getting to know my companions in travel purgatory at Continental’s Gate 60 in LAX’s Terminal 6.  Not a bad lot.    So, I had lunch with a woman who is a professional portrait photographer in Teaneck, NJ.  Another woman seated next to me at the gate shared her box of See’s chocolates with me. 

Our 3:30 PM flight out of LAX left as scheduled.  I arrived at EWK at 11:40 PM.  My luggage was waiting for me as it had been placed on one of the earlier flights out of LAX.  My driver was also waiting for me.  We were out of the airport and headed down the Garden State Parkway by midnight.  I arrived at my destination in Toms River at 1 AM.  I had been in travel mode for 21 hours and had gone through 3 time changes.  I could have flown to Europe or South America!





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