Minimum Connection Time (MCT)
The shortest officially permitted time between a traveler's inbound and outbound flight at a given airport.
Minimum Connection Time is the official floor for how close together an inbound and outbound flight can be scheduled at a specific airport while still being eligible to appear as a connectable itinerary in booking systems. MCTs are set by airport operators and airline schedulers based on the time required to complete the transit — disembarkation, terminal transit, security (if required), and boarding — under normal operating conditions. They vary by connection type: domestic to domestic, international to domestic, terminal to terminal, and so on.
Why it matters
MCT is the technical minimum, not the practical optimum. Booking systems use MCTs as a filter — itineraries that fall below MCT are typically not presented as options. But itineraries that exactly meet MCT leave no margin for operational delays, which occur on a substantial proportion of flights. Programme managers who rely on MCT as their connection time benchmark will predictably experience a volume of missed connections that a more conservative standard would avoid. The business cost of even a few missed connections per year typically justifies requiring a buffer above MCT on key routes.
How it works in practice
MCTs are coded in GDS systems and applied as filters in the itinerary building process. Different connection types have different MCTs at the same airport — a domestic-to-domestic connection at London Heathrow may have a different MCT than an international-to-international connection, which in turn differs from a Terminal 2 to Terminal 5 transfer. When a traveler changes terminals or switches between domestic and international zones, the MCT increases to reflect the supplementary transit time.
The takeaway
Incorporate MCT awareness into travel policy without making it overly rigid. Set minimum connection guidelines by airport category — domestic short-haul hub, international hub with single terminal, international hub with multiple terminals — that provide travellers with practical guidance. Pair this guidance with booking tool filters that surface only itineraries meeting the policy minimum, removing the need for individual judgment on each booking.