Question for my zNY/NYC/N90 homies

Hey there,

I fly with a primarily west coast airline who occasionally touches LGA/JFK/EWR. Not familiar with the intricacies of the airspace but I try and keep up as much as I can. Yesterday we were caught in LGA’s delay and had a few questions hopefully someone can answer. No shade being thrown, we just have no idea.

1). We saw CNTR SWAP IN EFFECT on the D-ATIS. What does this mean? We assumed ZNY is swamped but weren’t exact sure what it means.

2). We kept hearing flight data/clearance say that various “departures,” maybe more like departure gates or routes were being opened and closed, is this due to the Center swap or something else entirely? We were rerouted only once, but heard over frequency that various routes off of a similar SID were being shut down or something to that effect, thus causing a cascade of departures requesting to shut down both engines. We couldn’t entirely tell which on we were on, so we left one running and luckily had enough fuel to make it out, but are there any resources or info to look over regarding this stuff? Next time we may not be so lucky with fuel.

3). We were held at 10,000 the entire way out (luckily wasn’t too bad), but at what point can we request higher next time? ZOB, toward the edge of ZNY?

Thanks for the help!