Most passengers don't fly where you fly non-stop. A traveller from a small city to the other side of the world reaches you as a connection: they land on one of your flights and depart on another. Whether the sim lets them book that trip comes down to one thing: the connecting time at the transfer airport.

Minimum connecting time (MCT)#

MCT is the shortest layover a passenger can physically make at an airport: off one aircraft, through the terminal, onto the next. It's set per airport: busier, bigger hubs take longer to cross, so their MCT is higher. The default is 45 minutes, and a world can raise it at its largest airports.

A connection is only real if the layover fits inside a window:

  • At least the MCT: anything shorter is too tight; the passenger can't make it, so the trip won't book. It doesn't matter how attractive the fare is.
  • At most the maximum connect time (default 6 hours): a longer gap isn't a connection any more, it's a stopover, and the sim stops counting it.

So: MCT ≤ layover ≤ max connect ⇒ the connection exists. Miss either bound and it simply isn't on sale. This is why a beautifully-timed feeder that lands 30 minutes before a long-haul departure carries nobody onward: 30 < 45.

Reading the Connections panel#

On the Scheduling page, once you pick an airport pair, the Connections at {hub} panel lists every arrival→departure pair in the booking window and colours each by how the layover sits:

  • 🟥 Too tight: below the MCT; shown for context but marked won't book.
  • 🟩 Works: inside the window; a live, sellable connection.
  • 🟧 Too long: past the max; no longer counted.

Filter by direction, by connect quality, and by who operates the other flight (you, an alliance partner, a codeshare, an interline partner, or anyone). The header shows this airport's MCT and max so you always know the window you're aiming at.

Banks: building a wave#

A bank (or wave) is a cluster of your departures leaving close together. The art of a hub is to land a wave of feeders just before it, each arriving inside the MCT-to-max window, so one bank of departures sells connections from every feeder at once. Land six feeders 60–90 minutes before four departures and you've created dozens of through-itineraries from a handful of flights.

Two ways to waste flying:

  • A stranded arrival lands but nothing departs within its window: its passengers can't connect here, so it only carried local demand.
  • An unfed departure leaves with no arrival feeding it: it sells only its own origin's traffic, not the network's.

The bank designer (your Airport page)#

Open any airport you operate and the Your banks panel draws your day: a 30-minute histogram of arrivals (teal) above departures (amber), with each departure bank numbered on the timeline so you can see the waves. Below it, one row per bank: its local window, how many departures and destinations it holds, how many arrivals feed it, the connections that result, the median connect time, and a score.

The score is the sum of connection quality over every fed connection: a layover timed right at the MCT scores about 1.0 and tapers toward 0 as it approaches the max window. Tightly-banked feed beats technically-legal feed: the same connections, made crisper, score higher. Chase a high score by clustering feeders close to (but never under) the MCT ahead of each wave, and by driving stranded arrivals and unfed departures to zero.

Practical rules of thumb#

  • Put feeders on the ground ~MCT to ~2×MCT before a departure wave: early enough to make it, late enough to score well.
  • One well-fed bank beats scattered departures: concentrate, don't smear.
  • Watch the max: a feeder more than 6 hours before its onward flight feeds nobody.
  • A tight domestic hub (low MCT) can bank far more aggressively than a sprawling international one.