British Airways is changing its Minimum Connection Time at London’s Heathrow Airport in what is either a cold dose of slow reality or a sincere attempt to avoid paying compensation for missed connections.
The MCT, which is the minimum amount of time an airline leaves between the (scheduled) arrival of one plane and the (scheduled) departure of a plane its passengers are connecting to. At Heathrow’s Terminal 5, BA’s main hub, the time will now be 75 minutes instead of 60. For flights requiring a switch from T3 to T5, the time will remain at 90 minutes.
The changes not only mean longer waits between planes for some passengers, they also make some journeys no longer possible. For example, passengers from Nice heading for Los Angeles can no longer arrive in California at lunchtime by transiting through London, because that would leave only a 65-minute connection window. The lunchtime arrival is still possible, but only with connections at Amsterdam, Frankfurt or Paris, not Heathrow.
By comparison, connection times at other major European airports are much shorter: Amsterdam, 50 minutes; Frankfurt, 45 minutes; Paris CDG, 60 minutes; Vienna, 25 minutes and Zurich, 40 minutes.
