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Beating the clock

Published: 16/06/2008 - Filed under: Archive » 2008 » July / August 2008 » Special Reports » Features » Features » Special Reports »

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Airports quote minimum connection times to convince you to use them as hubs, but are they really viable, asks Alex McWhirter.

Why do airports and airlines persist in quoting passengers unrealistic transfer times? That’s a question many readers who have had business appointments ruined by missed connections regularly put to Business Traveller.

The truth is that minimum connection times (MCTs) at some airports are too short because they’re aimed at winning custom from rivals rather than ensuring that you make your onward flight. Since direct flights don’t exist for many important business routes, travellers flying from, say, Stuttgart to Chicago, or Edinburgh to Hong Kong or Gothenburg, need to make an en route connection and may well have several choices.

A number of considerations come into the final decision but one of them is overall length of journey, and at such times a short MCT can be persuasive. It is even more so considering that airport hubs work with their dominant airline. So a major hub like Munich will work in tandem with Lufthansa, likewise Amsterdam Schiphol will co-operate with KLM, and Paris CDG with Air France. All do their utmost to entice passengers to use their hub as a place to make a change of plane.

Nigel Turner, director of UK public sector at travel agent CWT, says: “The general view is that [these short MCTs] are a marketing ploy by the airlines and airports. These are minimum connecting times, so they’re valid only if everything runs like clockwork, but how often does this happen?”

Transit passengers are valuable. They generate millions of pounds of revenue and they enable that city’s airport to develop a greater range of air services than would normally be justified. This, in turn, encourages trade and investment for that country or region.

Another reason why airlines and airports are keen on the shortest MCT is because flight routings are listed in order of elapsed flight time, so the shortest trips are displayed first on the screens of mega booking-systems like Amadeus, which in turn power airline and travel-agency sites. Being listed at the top of the page is important because it’s reckoned as many as 80 per cent of online users book from page one of the display. (Amadeus was unavailable for comment.) If a travel agent is making the booking then a good firm should advise the passenger that the connection is tight, but many travellers now book direct, in which case they may be unaware of the pitfalls.

For their part, the airlines argue that customers want the fastest trip possible. A spokesperson for Lufthansa says: “Most passengers prefer to avoid long transit times and so we establish viable and realistic connecting times with the airport authorities.”

However, short MCTs also contribute to Europe’s mountain of delayed baggage. According to trade body AEA (the Association of European Airlines), in 2007, member carriers mislaid over 16 bags per 1,000 passengers. Based on the number of flights made by its members, that equates to six million bags going astray. James Fremantle, industry affairs manager of the AUC (a UK passenger watchdog), believes that 60 per cent of baggage problems within Europe are the result of tight connections.

So why are some MCTs deemed unviable? It’s because they haven’t been extended to take account of the industry’s growth. CWT’s Turner says: “Airports have changed over the years. It’s not only their sheer size – passengers and airlines must face stricter security, take-off slot restrictions, use of bus transfers and so on.”

Take Schiphol airport. It opened in 1967, and in the space of 40 years, its single terminal has not only quadrupled in size but passengers now have to undergo further checks if bound to or from EU cities in the Schengen zone. Airlines have also found that their flights can be directed to the new Polderbaan runway, seven kilometres from the terminal, meaning their planes spend a further ten to 15 minutes taxiing around the airfield. Yet for all this, Schiphol’s MCTs have barely changed, and when I asked the airport on three occasions to comment on whether its MCTs were sufficient, a spokesperson would only repeat that “our MCT is 40 minutes for European and 50 minutes for intercontinental flights”.

AUC’s Fremantle says: “Passengers don’t want to hang around airports, but our concern is that they aren’t being told the full story. In particular, KLM markets itself as a connecting airline, yet if a connection is missed, even between two KLM flights, this airline will not provide hotel accommodation [should a passenger be stranded overnight].

“Most of the airlines we talked to said they would provide assistance to connecting passengers, but they did not include this in their conditions of carriage. There should be rules brought in to cover missed connections. It’s something the EU missed out in its last set of passenger protection legislation [February 2005].”

Some airports are seeing the light. Although Frankfurt retains its 45-minute MCT, Lufthansa now insists on 60 minutes when passengers are connecting to or from the US, or between non-Schengen and Schengen destinations. At Dubai, an increasingly busy terminal has prompted Emirates to extend the MCT from 60 to 75 minutes. MCTs at Heathrow are longer than at competitors, and the authority insists on two-hour (cynics say two days would be more appropriate) transfers between the new T5 and existing terminals.

How to minimise the risks

Air travel can be unpredictable, so here are some tips to help avoid losing your connection…

• For the easiest transfers, always change between the same carrier (including codeshare services) or between carriers belonging to the same alliance. These flights will mostly operate within the same terminal and staff should offer more assistance. However, Heathrow is an exception to the rule. Here you’ll find airlines (even those linked with the same alliance) scattered throughout five separate terminals.

• At the risk of sounding a bore, I believe it’s wise to allow two to three hours when changing planes at a European hub, depending on its size. Allow much longer when arriving in the US and making a domestic connection. Times will vary depending on the gateway. You might need as much as three to four hours at LA but a shorter time might suffice at Atlanta. Better to be safe than sorry.

• If your final destination is not served regularly (and the onward flight has a reasonably early departure) then consider staying overnight at the hub. Carriers will tend to honour the through-fare when you make a short stopover.

Travellers’ tales of MCTs gone wrong

Gerhard Schneider recently booked to fly KLM from Nuremberg to Athens via Amsterdam. He had morning meetings in Athens the next day, so took the last flight from Nuremberg, giving him a 45-minute connection (five minutes more than the official MCT) to KLM’s last Amsterdam-Athens flight of the day.

When Schneider reached the airport he was pleased to see the monitors listed his flight as leaving on time. What he didn’t know was that the rostered F70 jet had, because of technical reasons, been replaced by a slower F50 turboprop.

The upshot was that the flight time was extended by 25 minutes. Schneider missed his connection, was stranded overnight, and didn’t reach Athens until 1345 the next day.

Sydneysider Jan Twomey was on an extensive business trip and her travel agent had booked her from Santiago (Chile) to Shanghai via Paris CDG and Helsinki. She had 75 minutes to connect in Paris, which should have been ample as CDG’s minimum connection time is 45 minutes.

However, her Air France flight landed 25 minutes late, and spent a further ten minutes taxiing to its apron parking position. Another ten minutes were lost taking a bus transfer. Twomey wrote: “So I was 45 minutes down before I had even started to traverse the terminal.”

Because of unhelpful Air France ground staff, the codeshare connection with Finnair was missed. Fortunately, Oneworld came to the rescue (Twomey had a Qantas ticket) and rebooked her with minimal delay.

Time-consuming bus transfers were a particular problem at CDG’s Terminal 2 last year before the opening of its new S3 pier. A senior Air France executive confided to Business Traveller that, at one stage, almost 50 per cent of its flights needed a bus transfer. That figure is now down to 15 per cent.

Mr and Mrs Peter Simpson allowed 2.5 hours to connect in LA from their Sydney-originating Qantas flight to a domestic American Airlines service to San Juan, but another late-running Qantas B747 landed just in front of them. With only four officers on duty to process the combined total of over 700 passengers, it took two hours to clear formalities. They missed the onward flight’s check-in deadline by five minutes and had to overnight in LA.

Malaysian reader Wendy Khoo was flying with SIA from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles via Singapore. Her 45-minute MCT at Changi airport should have been adequate. It was for her, but not for her luggage, which never made the connection. With important appointments scheduled soon after arrival, she had to run around replenishing her wardrobe.

Charles-Albert Snoy missed a connection in Munich, where he had allowed 35 minutes for the transfer. Air traffic control problems delayed his Lufthansa flight to Munich, where he was to connect to Moscow with Aeroflot. Lufthansa staff rebooked him via Frankfurt and he didn’t reach Moscow until 0115 local time the next day.

He wrote: “Although Lufthansa says I had enough connecting time, my travel agent CWT tells me one should trust neither the one nor the other.” Snoy added: “[Even] Lufthansa ground staff confirmed to me that the connecting time at Munich should be 60 minutes.”

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