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I am reading a Schengen airport MCT (Minimum connection time) chart for a future flight.

The flight comes from the country and then I would connect to another Schengen country.

I know that Schengen flights are treated as domestic flights immigration-wise.

But from an airline perspective, does a Domestic-Schengen connection count as Domestic-Domestic or Domestic-International?

I would highly think that Domestic is taken here at the full sense and the example flight would be taken as Domestic-International connection and not as a purely domestic one.

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    Kindly add information why the airline perspective should be different. When treated as one area, you are either flying in/out of the area or flying within it.
    – Mark Johnson
    Jul 29, 2022 at 13:25
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    @MarkJohnson Because there are multiple definitions of domestic, one from immigration purpose, one as stipulated in a dictionary (i.e. inside one country) etc... And honestly I don't have any idea why it should.
    – Nicolas Formichella
    Jul 29, 2022 at 13:33
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    Schengen flights are not necessarily treated as domestic flights custom-wise. There are countries in the Schengen area, which are not EU members, and flights between these countries or between the EU and any of these countries are subject to customs procedures just as any other international flight. The answer to your question may depend on specific details of the airport involved. For example if you land in Oslo coming from another Schengen country and transit to another national destination, here depening on the airlines involved, you may have get your luggage, go through customs and recheck
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Jul 29, 2022 at 17:10
  • An intra-Schengen intra-EU flight is indistinguishable from a “pure” domestic flight. Edge cases such as intra-Schengen but extra-EU or vice-versa may be slightly different, but not always, depending on the combination.
    – jcaron
    Jul 29, 2022 at 19:51
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    How do you use the MCT chart as a passenger? If the airline offers a connection on a single ticket it should be fine. On separate tickets I would like to have much more margin than any MCT chart.
    – Anders
    Jul 29, 2022 at 22:12

1 Answer 1

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As the flights within Schengen and within Germany will depart from the same part of the German airports with the same processes to join them, you can take the minimum connection time for Domestic as same for Within Schengen.

The only difference may be if you come from outside the Schengen area, have luggage and your next airport does not have a customs department, which might make you spend extra time to have your luggage through customs.

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    "As the flights within Schengen and within Germany will depart from the same part of the German airports with the same processes to join them": this has to be the correct answer. For the purposes under discussion, the critical factor is whether the passenger has to go through the Schengen immigration checkpoint. The difference between a flight from Frankfurt to Berlin and one from Frankfurt to Amsterdam is surely significant for other purposes, but not for determining the minimum connection time.
    – phoog
    Aug 29, 2022 at 19:17

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