yestravel

We have an international United flight arriving at Newark on a Wednesday afternoon @ 2:15. We have global entry.
How much time will we need to transfer to a UA flight to DCA?
How quick (or slow) does it take to pick up checked luggage. Trying to decide if we should check luggage or carry on. We have 1 hour 45 minutes between flights.

Southam

There is on outside shuttle train to take you around the airport:
http://www.panynj.gov/airports/ewr-airtrain.html

Here is a map for the three terminals:
http://www.panynj.gov/airports/ewr-airport-map.html

But you may not need it. The airport website says United uses Terminal C. In that case 1:45 hours should be enough for immigration and security but, sadly, delays are always possible in air travel. United has a number of flights to DCA after you land. One of them will take you home. Or you might be able to book a later flight right now.

tomfuller

No recent experience but I do remember a transatlantic flight landing at EWR several minutes after another international flight landed. We had quite a wait to get through customs to make our flight out.
If you do miss your flight to DCA, remember that there is an Amtrak station at EWR so you could make it to Washington on a train.
Hope that your plane comes in less than 30 minutes late.

RoamsAround

With Global Entry you should breeze through Immigration/Passport Control in just a few minutes regardless of how many international flights arrive at the same time as your. With GE we’ve never taken moroe than 5 minutes to get through Immigration.

Now, it can take anywhere from 15 to 40 minutes from the time you land for your luggage to be off-loaded and get to the carrousel. No one can tell you now how long it will take the day you fly. Once you claim your luggage you’ll have to exit the Customs Hall, identify which Terminal and Gate your connecting flight will use, clear TSA (can be slow at EWR so figure anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes) and the proceed to your gate.

If I’m not mistaken United uses 2 Terminals at EWR. If you have to change terminals use the SkyTrain Tram. Trains run every 3 minutes and it takes only about 5 minutes to get between terminals.

RoamsAround

OOPS! That should be AirTrain not SkyTrain.

yestravel

Thank you -- this is helpful info. Is it possible that we could get TSA PreCheck for our flight to DCA? Are the TSA Precheck lines any faster/shorter?

thursdaysd

Global entry includes TSA precheck.

janisj

Since both would be on United -- is there a reason you didn't book them together? Then you'd be protected even if your arrival is delayed.

yes, you'll have pre-check ...

yestravel

Yes, they are on the same ticket, that's not an issue. My preference is to make the 4 pm shuttle that I booked & not have to go on a later shuttle to DCA.

Based on current arrivals & departures it does look like my flights will be in different terminals.

Great, so my boarding pass for EWR to DCA will have TSA Prescheck. Does the TSA Precheck line generally go faster at EWR? I know at IAD, my usual airport, the lines at TSA Precheck can be quite long & not particularly fast during peak times.

RoamsAround

Many times when we've flown through EWR we had issues with PreCheck being crowded or, in some cases, not really functioning as a separate "screening line" instead there's a TSA Pre-Check line that merges into the regular line for the actual screening so no real advantage.

The lines can be long and while a bit faster than the regular lines it still can take upwards of 10 to 15 minutes. So I guess conditions are about the same as when you fly via IAD.

yestravel

Thanks, RoamsAround, good to know.

Seamus

You should be fine, based on my experience of many years with international arrivals at EWR. Global Entry makes things a breeze. If you can get away with only carry on, that's always a good idea.

yestravel

Seamus -- thanks, that was what I was trying to determine if we should do carry on to save time.

yestravel

testing

surfmom

I would encourage you to do only carry-on. We recently arrived home in EWR with global entry. We were through passport control in a breeze. We waited... and waited... and waited for checked luggage. (the only reason we checked luggage is that we were coming home and had been shopping a bit, so we expanded). Waiting for our luggage took at least 45 minutes. When we went to the customs line, we blew to the front of it with our Global Entry. All in all, it was at least an hour from landing to in our car driving away. (We had to take the train to the car parking lot).

Had we done carry-on only? Would have been 20 minutes. tops.

yestravel

Thanks, surfmom! Yes, the reason for my question was whether we should plan on carryon. IAD is the same. We breeze thru with GE and then get stuck waiting for our bags when we check our luggage. Sometimes we like to buy wine, thus the checking bags is needed.

yestravel

We breezed through at EWR. Our plane actually arrived an hour early so that certainly helped. We did do carry on which was good because we got on an earlier flight home. Thanks again for the info.

surfmom

glad it all worked out and thanks for the update!

Seamus

Hooray! Thanks for coming back to close the loop!