What Exactly Is Minimum Connection Time?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 10 Aug, 2023
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From a slightly different perspective…(chx provides the technical definition. The practical result is this.)
Minimum connection time is the shortest duration between scheduled Arrival and next scheduled Departure* for which the airline will sell a single ticket.
This is determined by the airline and can be different between airports. Also different airlines can have different MCT’s for the same airport.
This does mean that the ‘official MCT’ is somewhat irrelevant. For example, the official MCT for ATL might be 30 min (I don’t know, it doesn’t matter) but if Delta uses and internal number of 35 minutes, they will not sell you a ticket with a 30 minute connection, no matter how much you point to the official MCT.
*To be perfectly clear, each airline can have a different formula for this based on unpublished criteria. Schedule Arrival and Scheduled Departure are the published baselines for this.
I believe you’re looking at it from the wrong angle. As explained in the answers to the other question, it’s the minimum time that should be allowed between connections. If a connection meets that threshold, the route can be booked and the airline is responsible for bringing you to your final destination. That’s all there is to it; it’s normative, not descriptive.
Since having passengers miss a connecting flight entails additional costs, airlines have strong incentive to make sure it’s realistic but AFAIK how they go about it is completely up to each individual airline.
Also, scheduled flight times are understood from the moment the doors of the aircraft close to the moment the doors of the aircraft open again at the arrival gate. So that’s what minimal connection times refer to as well, by construction.
Clearly, airlines then have to account for the time it takes to disembark and move through the airport and probably add some safety buffer but it’s not something they measure so much as they define it.
- Finding convents and monasteries to stay in while travelling?
- In the EU, what rights do you have if your rental car agency fails to deliver?
The MCT is defined by IATA Resolution 765:
For the purpose of Resolution 765, in a passenger context, a Minimum Connecting time (MCT) interval is defined as the shortest time interval required in order to transfer a passenger and his luggage from one flight to a connecting flight, in a specific location or metropolitan area.
Establishment of and changes or exceptions to standard MCTs are governed by the provisions of IATA Resolution 765 Official MCTs are determined by the airport local MCT group, which consist of scheduled airlines and railways serving an airport, or if there is no such a group, by the Airport Operating Committee (AOC).
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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