07/29/2026
What is the 45-minute rule?
Behind the ticket counter, there's a lot of work that needs to happen before your bag reaches the aircraft door. Your bag must be tagged, screened, sorted, and transported across the ramp and loaded onto the aircraft while boarding is underway and crews are preparing the flight.
After boarding begins, there's only a small window of time left to safely process additional bags. That's why airlines enforce a baggage cutoff time. Even if a flight is delayed, the original baggage cutoff is still in effect, that way if the delay resolves faster than expected, you aren't waiting extra time for bags to be reprocessed or processed for the first time.
