[jimworcs]

Airline Sympathizer, you are making up rules in other sectors which simply don't exist. Many people, because of the unrealiability of airlines have missed the sailing of their cruise from Miami for example. They are absolutely allowed to join the cruise in the next port, say Freeport in Bahamas, although if they didn't book the flight through the cruise company, they may have to pick up the expense of the extra flight.

I booked 5 nights at the Holiday Inn in Boston on a non refundable, advance purchase rate. My flight from LHR to BOS was cancelled, and I arrived 32 hours late. My booking was intact and I was able to utilise the last 4 days.

If you have to make things up to bolster your argument, it is usually a sign you have lost it.

There is a huge difference between seeking to amend a non refunable or non changeable ticket and seeking not to use it. What possible difference does it make to the airline if you choose not to utilise the service? Lets say I purchased a cheap advance purchase bed and breakfast deal at a hotel, costing $100 per night. The rack rate for room only is say $125.00. If I choose not to have the breakfast, do you think the hotel can demand that I pay the additional $25?

These rules exist actually to limit competition. The reason they exist, is that the hub system operating in the US creates a series of local monopolies. To feed the voracious appetite of the hub for transferring passengers the airlines had to price fares to local markets. This meant that for example, it could be cheaper to fly from say Greensboro, SC to Nashville, TN via Atlanta that to fly to Atlanta direct. The anomolous situation is because where there is a dominate carrier in a hub, the market no longer works. There is no effective competition and the pricing becomes abusive.

There was a famous example, where it was demonstrated that you could fly from Boston to Washington, DC via London, UK cheaper than a direct flight on the shuttle. In any normal functioning market this anomoly would not exist, as someone would see an opportunity, begin offering a cheaper direct service to compete on the shuttle route and clean up. The capacity on this route remains inadequate to meet demand because of slot restrictions. Normally, where the market cannot function properly, we address this issue with regulation. You see this working in other industries (the break up of Ma Bell, regulation of Microsoft operating systems and it's openness to competition, etc). However, the airlines have it both ways...de-regulation in a market which doesn't function.

This term which deems that the whole leg is lost if you don't use any part it, regardless of the circumstances is an unfair and abusive term and condition. Most passengers have no choices in relation to this. Even if there are two or three airlines competing on a route, they may all have this term and condition, so the concept of choice is meaningless. The false choice of paying $2,500 for a $250 ticket in order to buy the flexibility is not choice at all for most people.

In the US the options are severely restricted. Alternative types of transport are not always available... driving is prohibitive for some distances and rail travel options are severely limited.

It is ridiculous to suggest that if you know in advance that a condition exists, then it is fair. The banks have recently had to re-pay huge amounts in fees which were deemed to be abusive and unfair. These fees were published... so the customers should have just taken their custom elsewhere right? Wrong, the industry was abusive and the reality is that they needed regulation to bring them under control. The airlines are in exactly the same situation.