Stuff that makes sense...
 

I'm flying CO90 tonight, EWR to TLV, so of course I go to check its status on co.com and I see that CO90 comes from LA first, where it was scheduled to leave at 11:50 am, but left at 3:00pm.

That gives us an estimated arrival time in EWR at 11:12PM (instead of 8:15).

But, thank God, the scheduled time of 10:50pm for departure to TLV hasns't changed! Which means the plane will leave EWR a fantastic 22 minutes before arriving.

Under status, it says please contact CO, which I did, and the automated system says departure on time as well...

What should I expect?

Remember, flight 90 has a change of equipment in EWR. The LAX-EWR segment is scheduled to be on a 753, so your EWR-TLV should be fine unless something else pops up.

I try as hard I can, I can't recall when I knew that! :-)

Thanks though. Why do they do that kind of stuff? Does that mean they'll have two CO90 in the air in the EWR area? Is that possible?

Imagine tower control calling to "CO90", kind of confusing, no?

Happens all the time on all airlines.

For CO, the latter flight will be coded as 5xxx. In this case, it'll be CO5090 with the traffic control if the first one hasn't arrived. At the gate and on continental.com, they'll still be shown as CO90.

This does happen fairly frequently. One of my past favs was the flight from DCA-EWR-GVA that started out as an ERJ. I had to do a double-take when I went by the gate and saw Geneva as the destination. This is done for marketing purposes as they can label it a "direct" flight, even if there is an equipment change.

A direct flight whose second leg doesn't wait for passengers on the LAX-EWR first leg -- particularly cruel marketing.

My wife and I were minutes away from being victims of this issue. Our direct flight to CUN switched equipment in IAH and our inbound flight was delayed due to WX in CLE. Luckily the gate was close or we would have been screwed!

It happens more then it ought to, but it's better then it used to be, once apon a time the airlines would have a number of inbound flights with the same number to connect.

"Direct" flights would, of course, show up on the travel agent's computer (remember travel agents?) before connecting flights.

We need some regulation on the "direct" flight issue.

Just a simple rule that the onward portion of a direct flight involving a plane change may not push back until the inbound has arrived + the minimum connect time for that airport (or 30 minutes, whichever is less).

That would pretty much eliminate the practice, since they wouldn't want to take the risk. ;)

So this is your chance to experience your first BF trip--on the way back, right? I hope you have a great trip.