Newark is not the most spotters friendly airport I've ever been to. The potential is there to make great photos, but since 9/11 everything has gone down hill (and those are the words from a PAPD officer). 

On either side of terminal A there is a small outdoor platform from which you can see limited taxiing operations. Perhaps not necessarily intended to go spotting, but no-one seemed to care me being there. The western side has mostly AirTran and some Air Canada mainline and affiliates.

The eastern side has US Airways/America West and Northwest Airlines/KLM. Both 22L/04R and 22R/04L can be seen from here too, but the distance makes photography hard. Heathaze is a killer here. Mind you, while I was there the temps reached up to 40c, so photos from my toes would have suffered from heathaze! ;-)

Western side terminal A:

Eastern side terminal A

Another great spot, potentially, is the top of car park 4. Here you got a view over traffic coming in on runway 11/29 as well as part of terminal C (Continental)

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Anyway, I said potentially as I was quickly send of. The person sending me of was very polite, and even offered to call in someone from the port autority so I could ask them for a photography permit. I was stupid enough to reject the offer, and proceeded to the terminal to speak to someone there. As it happens, the PA office is not at the airport. Since I had no car a phone call would have to suffice.

First call with PA Operations. After 2 persons they managed to inform me that I would have to call the media relations department. I did tell them I did not belong to a media organisation, but nonetheless the media department had to be called. So guess what, media relations said they could not help me since they only gave permission to the media. Well, that was unexpected! So a new contact person, PA Police Department this time! Making progress now? 

So after a few times being tranferred around ("you again, did I not transfer you"), I spoke to a police officer. He started a whole story about him regretting me not being allowed to practise some amendments and the constitution came in and some more boring stuff. In the end he said (and I quote) "The PAPD does not grant licenses for photography. For as far as we care it not allowed. I advice you to use your own ingenuity". 

So while I was in the terminal anyway, my ingenuity decided that I might as well stay in the terminal area and shoot photos from there. Despite walking around with a pretty large camera, noone could be bothered. Unfortunately shooting is through glass (except for the previously mentioned terminal A spots), but it is largely clean. There is a tint though which is annoying. The following photos where shot at terminal B from the food court.

p.s. Do not eat at the Italian restaurant. It got me running to the toilet with the food coming out the wrong end.

These planes where spotted today.