KyRoamer

On a Sunday, my wife and I will be flying EWR-CLE-SDF with a 41 minute connect flight. My EWR flight 525 leaves EWR at 10:10 and is due into CLE at 11:39. We connect to a Continental Express 2494 due out at 12:20. It is an RJ145.

There are five later CO branded flights (two are NW codeshares) so I'd guess odds of getting to SDF that day are good. However, we have a 7 pm dinner scheduled and only two get us in on time. One is a 4:45 Continental Express RJ145 and the other is a NW flight with a CO codeshare number. If the Continental Express flight is full, what are the odds they will put me on the NW DC9-30 (CO7278)?

Now I am CO Gold flying on a saver award (20,000 miles each!) ticket. My wife has no airline status. Not sure if that makes a difference but suspect it will put us behind all paying passengers. Hope that is not so.

I could change maybe to the 6 pm flight and be safe but don't remember if it had saver award seats and am not keen on paying a change fee. If I have a shot at the 12:20 to SDF, I'll take it. But if EWR at 10:10 on Sunday is a zoo, who knows.

I am not good at finding my way around flightstats.com but it looked good to me for an on time arrival. But on time can be 15 minutes late! Also 525 today arrived at gate C05 and the SDF flight (today CO3067) left from C27. Hopefully they are close to each other.

Crystal balls aside, what do you see as my odds of making my connection? If I miss it, how good are the odds on geting on one of the next two (including the codeshare) flights?

Any advice?