3 terminals, huge Continental parking bay with tens and tens of planes lined up, for either take off or service, I figured it was a large hub for Continental!
A hot bright warm day with the sun glistening off the tarmac and making me realize it’s just as bad as Bombay, this heat! What was I expected I chided myself.
In 2006 this airport handled 36million passengers! Newark is the 10th busiest airport in the United States, the 5th busiest international one, second being JFK.
Here’s an interesting story I was told by somebody at the bar- United Airlines Flight was ready to take off from gate A17 at 8:01 am, on its way from Newark to San Francisco International Airport on Sept 11, 2001
Two hours later it would crash into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
when passengers took over the plane from a team of hijackers. Based on the direction that the plane was flying at the time and information gathered afterwards, most observers believe that the hijackers intended to crash the plane into a target in Washington DC, In memory of this event, the airport's name was changed from Newark International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport. This name was chosen over the initial proposal, Liberty International Airport at Newark, and refers to the landmark Statue of Liberty, just 7 miles east of the airport. Despite the name change few locals call it by its new name. The name most often used by locals is "Newark Airport" or simply "Newark".
I found myself out of the terminal , sitting in the cab very robotically , mesmerized by the thought that - Hello! I was in America! In the cab I sat seeking the tall buildings of New York! - It took me a while to get there from New Jersey!:-)
6 comments:
Sigh! Newark from 15 min from home! I miss it so much.
It's a pretty great airport...People always whine that its flooded with crazy Indians... but then again.. what place isnt anymore, and why is that always a bad thing?! :)
Did you know that Newark airport sells some terrific cold chicken chilly and warm pasta ! yummy.
The only low thing about that place is that it does not give you a fabulous window gazing experience.-limited number of shops. The waiting lounges are also "thaka hua".
But I do like the energy of the place.
I must definitely add here, that while I was going a bit crazy inside the store, Diwakar had soon decided this was not his kinda place- so after hours when I finished and remembered that he probably must be slowly losing his wits because of me, I spotted him thru the wondow, standing out on the street. Very aplogetically I went upto him to find the right excuse to say to him and he turned to me looking very happy and said this is a fabulous place to stand here and see the world go by! I was stumped! I thought the most fabulous place was inside the store!?!
I still remember the in cabin announcement "- Welcome to United States of America at newark's Libert International Airport. The oputside temperarure is 18 degree celcius and time is 11.55 AM. Thank you for flying jet Airways."
We step out in businesslike efficient lobby and walk to the immigration counters...long squarish queue. The man befhind me says" India won the final T20 world cup. Thank God some evangelists of cricket are in US as well.
The lincoln limo with daljeet singh waits for us with a smile amercianised by staying in US for 17 years.
You know what the interesting thing was unfolding outside of Best buy ! A young african american was selling CDs containing his own R & B, and hip hop vocals renditions. And it was interesting how he was doing it. He would have thought what best way to sell my songs than to sing it impromptu on the side walks itself. So he launched into a typical jiving swagger and started singing a number. It sounded kind a cool. Soon a bunch of columbian gathered around him and asked him to sing Bob Marley. And boy, he did a good job at it. Just that whole lot of women were standing around him to hear him sing "no women no cry".
In the next momenmt he had traded 4 of his CDs with that columbian group.
The experiential marketing at its best
nice info but you said take off out if gate A17 but its push back out of gate A17
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