Airlines accused of breaking law with ‘no show’ booking clauses

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Airlines are at risk of breaking consumer law by cancelling a passenger’s entire itinerary if they fail to check in for one flight, a consumer group has claimed.

Most carriers will automatically cancel all sectors of an air ticket if the first leg or an intermediate flight is not taken. Travellers may be obliged to spend thousands of pounds to buy seats on the flights they had already paid for.

The airlines impose the rule to prevent “tariff abuse” – buying a ticket with the intention not to fly the whole itinerary. For commercial reasons, and because of the way taxes are calculated, they often sell connecting flights for less than the cost of one individual component.

Emirates is charging £549 return from Stansted to Dubai in January 2019, but only £457 if continuing flights to and from Delhi are bought. Similarly a British Airways return flight from Amsterdam via Heathrow to New York next summer costs £40 less than a straightforward return from London to JFK on exactly the same flights.

Both airlines will cancel the remaining itinerary if a passenger does not check in for one of the segments.

But the rule is applied even when there is no financial advantage to the passenger for cutting out a flight, and when a problem such as public transport failure or a motorway pile-up has caused them to miss the check in deadline.

The consumer group Which? says airlines may be breaking consumer law. It has written to nine carriers, including BA and Virgin Atlantic, saying the practice is potentially a breach of both the Consumer Rights Act and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Directive.

Which? says the clauses are “often buried deep in airline terms and conditions”. Virgin Atlantic’s rule is numbered 3.5.1, and says: “The ticket will not be honoured and will lose its validity if all the electronic coupons are not used in the sequence provided.”

As The Independent reported in 2017, a London barrister, James Dove, successfully argued that the Spanish airline Iberia had no right to cancel his return flight after he missed his outbound flight.

Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products and services, said: “Missing a flight because you’re stuck in traffic or on a delayed train is frustrating enough, but for the airline to then turn around and say your return journey is cancelled as well, is completely unfair and unjustified.

“We don’t think there’s any good reason for a ‘no show’ clause to exist – it only works in favour of the airline. It should be removed immediately by airlines, who need to show more respect for their passengers.”

Which? has asked the airlines to respond by 28 December.

The budget airlines, notably easyJet and Ryanair, sell all their flights segment-by-segment. With no possible advantage for “no-show” passengers, they do not cancel the return leg if the outbound flight is missed.

The Independent recently reported that Turkish Airlines told a London charity executive his homeward reservation had been cancelled as he was a “no-show” on the outbound leg – even though he offered proof that he was aboard the flight from Heathrow to Istanbul.

The carrier later apologised and said it would refund him.