Narrative:

I was working sector 74 and I was put in the hold by N90. After several minutes of holding; N90 yelled over the line to run the traffic; I tried to ask what speed would they like; but no one would answer the line. Weather was affecting the sector; the arrivals could not go over sweet intersection or bwz which is the final fix before N90's airspace. I repeatedly called the ewr sector with no response. I tried to run an air carrier flight into N90 but could not get them to take the hand off or answer the line. This happened at least three times; they finally yelled over to send the aircraft over stw VOR which is just a few miles north of the ewr arrival so I issued the route to the aircraft. N90 then said that they could not take the aircraft; so once again I had to vector the aircraft back into my airspace and get the aircraft re-established in holding at penns intersection. Meanwhile; aircraft wanted to deviate in the penns pattern. I also had other traffic transitioning through my sector that were wanting to deviate including lga arrivals. The lack of cooperation between the tmu and N90 caused 2 aircraft to divert as well as caused excessive delays to numerous other aircraft holding; not only in my sector but many sectors to the west. Finally another controller yelled over the line 'run the traffic over stw'. We could see on the asd that there were not many aircraft; even in N90's airspace at the time; they had all pretty much landed. I have never in all my years seen such a debacle of getting traffic inbound to their airport. I don't understand why a simple phone call can't result in new routing or some type of cooperation with two facilities if we are really trying to provide a service. Years ago the supervisor would call N90 and coordinate a new route around the weather in a matter of a minute or so; now we have so many 'layers' involved and it seems like no one wants to make a decision or take aircraft. Part of our job as a controller is to answer the land lines; this does not seem to be in N90's job description. Recommendation; have a direct line of communication with the ewr sector supervisor and our supervisor and work out a way to take the traffic as soon as possible; otherwise by the time tmu gets involved; quite often now the weather has moved and becomes a problem. In the meantime tmu could be working on the rest of the arrivals holding down the line. My other recommendation is to find out why N90 repeatedly does not answer the line.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: ZNY Controller voiced concern regarding N90's failure to answer land lines when weather and other factors require changes to established arrival routes; the reporter noting this coordination is entirely too time consuming.

Narrative: I was working Sector 74 and I was put in the hold by N90. After several minutes of holding; N90 yelled over the line to run the traffic; I tried to ask what speed would they like; but no one would answer the line. Weather was affecting the sector; the arrivals could not go over SWEET Intersection or BWZ which is the final fix before N90's airspace. I repeatedly called the EWR Sector with no response. I tried to run an air carrier flight into N90 but could not get them to take the hand off or answer the line. This happened at least three times; they finally yelled over to send the aircraft over STW VOR which is just a few miles north of the EWR arrival so I issued the route to the aircraft. N90 then said that they could not take the aircraft; so once again I had to vector the aircraft back into my airspace and get the aircraft re-established in holding at PENNS Intersection. Meanwhile; aircraft wanted to deviate in the PENNS pattern. I also had other traffic transitioning through my sector that were wanting to deviate including LGA arrivals. The lack of cooperation between the TMU and N90 caused 2 aircraft to divert as well as caused excessive delays to numerous other aircraft holding; not only in my sector but many sectors to the West. Finally another controller yelled over the line 'run the traffic over STW'. We could see on the ASD that there were not many aircraft; even in N90's airspace at the time; they had all pretty much landed. I have never in all my years seen such a debacle of getting traffic inbound to their airport. I don't understand why a simple phone call can't result in new routing or some type of cooperation with two facilities if we are really trying to provide a service. Years ago the supervisor would call N90 and coordinate a new route around the weather in a matter of a minute or so; now we have so many 'layers' involved and it seems like no one wants to make a decision or take aircraft. Part of our job as a controller is to answer the land lines; this does not seem to be in N90's job description. Recommendation; have a direct line of communication with the EWR Sector Supervisor and our Supervisor and work out a way to take the traffic ASAP; otherwise by the time TMU gets involved; quite often now the weather has moved and becomes a problem. In the meantime TMU could be working on the rest of the arrivals holding down the line. My other recommendation is to find out why N90 repeatedly does not answer the line.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.