A very important point to consider is this; you are talking about travel 4 months from now. If either airline has a schedule change that shortens that connection even further, as the tickets are booked seperately, you have no recourse with them. And in 4 months, you could have multiple schedule changes. I agree that you should get the ticket issued as one ticket if possible. Or, get an earlier departure from the West Coast. I don't know what city you are flying out of, but USAir has flights from the West coast that connect in Charlotte and arrives Newark at 609p.

Good luck!

Just an update from the OP to tell how everything with our flights worked out. My spouse "lost" this dispute. We ended up taking an early morning Continental flight that arrived into Newark at 4:30 pm, or so. Everything was on time. We claimed our bags and made it to our Malaysian Airlines gate with several hours to spare.

I'm very glad we didn't opt for the US Airways flight that arrived at 7:30 pm. The stress level would have been too high.

Thanks to everyone for your input. I'll post a trip report (for Stockholm and Copenhagen) when I get time.