March 2nd, 2008
Take Care When Booking a Return Flight!
In today’s Independent On Sunday, Simon Calder reports on a bureaucratic anomaly which prevents airline passengers from using a return sector of a flight when they have failed to use the outbound leg. The rule, still used by some scheduled airlines such as BA, may seem rather archaic when the low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and Easyjet deliberately sell flights on a one-way basis allowing passengers to easily chose the length of their trip. The reasoning is a legacy related to the rules that airlines used to apply in the pre low-cost days of aviation, which often forced travellers to ensure they had a Saturday night stayover in their destination. Calder describes how airlines will automatically cancel the return sector of your flight in the event of a no-show - even if you advise them in advance that you will only be taking up the inbound flight!
The bizarre situation is that by forcing people to fly the outbound leg, the airlines have to pay the government £10 API plus the airport taxes which are payable when people actually fly rather than for those who make a booking. As Calder sums up - “Travel is tricky, but not travelling can sometimes be even tougher”.