[russgolla]

My daughter is a student in Hartford that had a round trip from Hartford to Milwaukee. Her return leg was from Milwuakee to Chicago (Ord) to Hartford. She got the opportunity to visit her sister in Chicago for the day before her return to Hartford. She and I tried to convince United to allow her to simply board in Chicago rather than going to Milwaukee to fly back to Chicago to catch her connection to Hartford. United said no. How does this make any sense? She can go online and print her boarding passes from Milwaukee to Chicago and from Chicago to Hartford. United said that if she didn't board in Milwaukee, then it would cancel her trip and she would not be allowed to board in Chicago. Why can't she just skip the redundant trip from Chicago to Milwaukee and back to Chicago? United simply does not care about its customers. Can airlines do this?

[azstar]

Every airline, without exception, does this. The airline logic is that the ticket is a contract. If you don't fulfill the terms of the contract, e.g. flying every leg as ticketed, you have breached the contract. The illogical fact is that airline pricing makes absolutely no sense.It's supply and demand pricing, not distance pricing. It's possible that Chicago to Hartford is more expensive than Milwaukee-Chicago-Hartford. They don't want people buying cheaper tickets from a lower price city and then simply boarding at a different city which may be a higher price.

[russgolla]

Just because every airline does this doesn't mean it makes any sense. They only do it because they can which is the behavior of a typical playground bully. They can encourage people to call if their plans change and sell the seat on the flight that you drop and make more money rather than causing substantial inconvenience for costomers. Anyone know of any government airline regulations that address this subject?

[jimworcs]

This ridiculous policy is well established within the industry. It is entirely to defend their ridiculous pricing policy and is particularly rife in airlines which operate the "hub" system. Hubs are in effect local monopolies. In order for the economics of a hub to work, they rely on feeding passengers into and out of the hub. In order to faciliatate this, they have to route people via hubs, but the fare they can charge to be competitive is less than it would cost to fly from the hub directly. To protect this gouging, they make it a condition that all the segments of a flight are taken.

It is not true every airline does this. Many low cost point to point airlines do not have this policy.

The solution. Proper regulation of the airline industry. The local monopoly hubs should be broken up, in the same way as ATT were broken up in the 70s. No airline should have more than 25% of the take off and landing slots at any airport. This would break up the hub system, encourage more competition and increase the number of point to point flights. The airlines will throw up a whole host of disaster scenarios as to why this won't work. They are bogus, just as AT&T disaster arguments to protect Ma Bell were bogus. These giant hubs are anti-competitive and against the consumer interests, as are these mammoth "too big to fail" airlines that are given anti-trust immunity to merge.

SOONER OR LATER, WE NEED TO WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE. The airline industry is abusive to customers and badly needs an overhaul and re-regulation.

[azstar]

Originally Posted by jimworcs

It is not true every airline does this. Many low cost point to point airlines do not have this policy.

It is true. Not all airlines require roundtrip as a condition of purchase, but you can never simply board at an intermediate point without consquences. If you have purchased a Southwest ticket STL-MDW-PHL, for example, you cannot board in MDW without paying the current MDW-PHL fare which could be considerably higher than the STL-MDW-PHL fare.