Hi there,

I'm going to travel to New york in for 4 nights March. I can either go Swissair to JFK or Continental to Newark, price is exactly the same, either airport is fine, and times for both are workable.

Has anyone any idea how the planes and service compares? If there's better planes on one or the other it will probably seal the deal!

Any help will be much appreciated

Wayne

Is price an issue? We went with BA via Heathrow into JFK and saved ourselves a packet for the four of us. Would add a bit of travelling too though.
Just an alternative to your above options.

Because we're only going for 4 nights trying to avoid connections. Would like to spend as much time there as possible! The direct flights seem quite reasonable anyway I think

Continental/United no longer provides complimentary wine and beer in economy class. (Not sure about Swiss: can anyone confirm/deny?). Continental's TV system was a little weird (I flew Newark -> ZRH). Rather than picking something and watching it, 4-6 movies cycle through and you have to watch it when it starts, rather than on demand. + 1 more inch of foot room on the Swiss flight, and it wins for me

Perfect! Whether true or not, I can't risk not having the complimentary wine and beer

Swiss is good. Planes seem new, good entertainment system and food always seems fine to me (as airline food goes).

I've never taken Continental though so can't compare directly.

nah. swiss air to jfk. newark is a hassle to take the train, especially if you don't know nyc and you have a good amount of baggage. plus continental really isn't so great, i only take it when the price is outrageously better than all the other airlines.

from jfk just take the airtrain or even better pay about 20 bucks and take a car service to your hotel, you can even check if your hotel has a shuttle to save you the hassle.

advice- always jfk over newark if you are heading into manhattan, then you even get to see beautiful brooklyn !

last time we took airfrance and had complimentary champagne...

I like Swiss, efficient, new planes. Continental always feels like a cattle car.

Newark a huge PITA. If your destination really is NYC, then flying into JFK on Swiss is really the way to go.

20 bucks car service? How?

Always fly a Swiss Airline if you have a choice...US airlines suck even on international routes. Newark is not so bad if you are going to lower Manhattan by taxi.

In Newark,there is also a way to get on the train system which is not really that complicated, you just need to talk the airtram thing to the last stop and transfer to the train (schedules though may not be not as frequent as you are used to in ZH). Is JFK really that much more convenient/easy you still have to transfer to the subway to get to Manhattan....

You can also get a bus from Newark Airport that goes right into Central Manhattan, it leaves from each terminal every 15 mins and takes about 45-60 mins depending on traffic. It drops off at the Bus Terminal, just down from Times Square and Grand Central, costs $15 per adult.

We have always used that and found it very convenient.

I always fly Continental, they fly out at a reasonable hour if you live in the Geneva/Vaud area and you're out of Immigration/Border Control by 12PM usually. The terminal C light rail station is in the middle of the building, slightly hidden but signposted properly and it gets you to New Jersey Transit pretty quickly. Then it's just a quick 20min ride to Penn Station, Manhattan. If I have a 4 hour+ layover waiting to fly South I usually pop in for a couple of hours to enjoy NYC.

For the state of the planes, they're 90s vintage 767s. Leg space isn't fantastic but it's usually enough. If you're on a not so full flight go for the middle seat in an empty middle row, you can then spend the flight asleep fully stretched out on 3 seats! The inflight entertainment system is tape based and plays about 6-7 channels of continuously replaying movies or tv series, some old and popular, some pretty new. Not on a par with more modern airliners but there you go. If you have a book and/or a laptop it doesn't really matter.

Continental use that annoying two prong audio socket btw, so you need an adapter for you favorite headset.