Five of us are travelling this weekend on the 5pm flight from Dulles to Newark, then the 10:10 pm flight to Rome, on award tickets issued by Delta and Northwest. Yes, we feel lucky to have obtained the award seats, but we are very worried about missing the flight to Rome, which is the latest international flight Continental operates. I have checked the Continental website over the last week and the 3pm, 5pm and 7pm DCA and IAD flights to Newark are regularly either cancelled or several hours late, but the status keeps changing so that one doesn't know until you're already at the airport that your flight is cancelled or very late. We are looking for suggestions as to how to avoid missing our flight to Rome. We'd drive to Newark if we had to (at considerable expense of two weeks parking and gas), but we probably won't know our flight is cancelled or very late until it is too late to drive. Any thoughts? Thanks much.

Are you going Saturday? If so, the 5 PM flight is the last one. How about weaseling your way on one of the earlier flights (via standby) to give yourselves a buffer? There appear to be seats available.

How about Amtrak? That maybe cheaper? Or Greyhound bus? Or an early flight out or DCA or IAD?

Other than driving or Amtrak the two options as I see it are:

1) Call CO and ask about moving to an earlier flight to avoid a possible misconnect. They might say no, they might ask for $$, they might tell you to call DL or NW, but hey, they might say yes.

2) Assuming flights iad-ewr aren't full, show up early and stand by at the gate for an earlier flight. I believe you can confirm that same-day for $25, but I've always just gone to the gate. If there are seats, you're on. Just make really, really sure that they update your PNR correctly so that you're not still on the orignal flight after getting on the earlier flight. If so they *might* cancel the remaining segments. It's usually done correctly, but there is the occasional thread posted here where something went wrong.

I think you are overly concerned. You have a four hour window for them to be late. CO rarely cancils flights. And if they somehow do cancil it, you have three airports in the area to get an alternate flight to NYC. You could just hop the delta shuttle and cab over to EWR.

That'll certainly save money.

CO has had to cancel numerous flights during this summer of thunderstorms. ATC has been a horror show at EWR this summer! As I type this post, there are massive delays and cancellations into EWR due to ATC and thunderstorms.

The trouble is making alternative plans which is what the poster asked. By the time you know you are going to be screwed by significant delays or cancellation, it is often too late to do anything about it. And when ATC and weather hampers EWR, LGA is often no better.

My advice... watch the weather forecasts closely, and if convective activity is forecast, take the earliest flight that you can. Better to sit around EWR for hours than to miss the connection.

I agree; the time window that you have is great. You could always show up at the airport and try for an earlier flight on standby. Personally, if I had your itinerary, I wouldn't worry.

You should have originated from DCA or BWI. Both of these airports have very easy access to the Amtrak alternative (subway for DCA to Union Station or shuttle bus for BWI to BWI station).

Case in point... both the 5PM AND the 7PM IAD-EWR flights were cancelled this eveing. Watch your weather and if it appears threatening, leave as early in the day as you can.