My experience at Newark Airport’s new terminal A wasn’t great (Opinion)

I had heard a lot about the renovations done to Newark Airport within the last year. The new Terminal A was supposed to be this extravagant part of the airport with all these new devices and setups to make it easier for the patrons.

Judi Franco once wrote about why Newark Airport was actually one of the best. But I have the opposite opinion of it.

My first experience at Newark Terminal A was anything but the best.

Now I feel the need to preface that I don't think I've ever had an airport experience where I went, "Gee I can't wait to do that again!" Looking forward to your vacation is one thing but the hassle of getting in and out of the airport beforehand is another.

The moment that I got to Newark's Terminal A, trouble ensued. We had to check luggage. OK, no big deal. Done that plenty of times before. But the kiosk where you need to print your baggage tags refused to scan our boarding pass. No matter how many times you tried to scan it the thing wouldn't work.

So an employee came to help us out but even she couldn't figure it out. She told us that they'd been having trouble with every one of their kiosks, so we had to manually put in our boarding pass ID so that we could print the bag tags. It was an unnecessary pain in the butt and it significantly slowed down our trip.

Which brings me to the worst part of all this. After we finally got our bags checked we headed over to the TSA line. It was moving pretty quickly at first, but as we neared the end, they shut down one of the lines. For seemingly no reason. Just all of a sudden it was closed. We weren't told anything, we just had to accept it.

Once we finally got through the TSA line we just rushed to the gate and boarded the flight because, after all the hoopla I just explained, we were nearly late for the flight.

I get it, that the new Terminal A is the shiny new toy, but I'd much rather be in a terminal that's older but works than a new one that doesn't.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kyle Clark. Any opinions expressed are his own.

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