Smiley90

This might be a bit far-fetched, but is it possible to have a different person travelling on the inbound and the outbound of a round-trip? (e.g. Person A flies LHR-CDG, person B flies CDG-LHR)? Not on a fast turnaround of course to allow for IT changes, but just wondering if it's possible AT ALL.

Thanks in advance!

Googled, couldn't find anything. :/ If it's airline specific, I'm looking specifically at KLM/AF

STBCypriot

If it is all on a single ticket, the person for which the ticket is issued is the only person allowed to make the flights. Some airlines allow name changes for a fee, but I am not sure if that is allowed mid-itinerary. You'd have to check with the issuing airline.

tcook052

Unless these passengers have identical names no, it isn't allowed as security will want to match ticket with passenger & passport.

Smiley90

I know that, but I meant to ask if it's possible to change it within the system through e.g. a phone call.

Adam1222

No. A roundtrip ticket is issued to a passenger, not to as many hypothetical passengers as segments. Hence "roundtrip".

Smiley90

Arbitrary rules are arbitrary... But alright, thanks for the help Was hoping it'd be "ticket is for 1 passenger" instead of "ticket is for person x", but oh well

tcook052

Like a bus pass, you mean? No, it's a little more involved than that.

Smiley90

But does it have to be? I mean, international train tickets are also easily changeable, they don't even require names. -shrugs-

tcook052

How things are and how things should be are rarely the same thing. Intercontinental air travel is subject to a much higher degree of security and multi-national treaties than intra-Schengen train travel, for example, and if you want to Google the Montreal Convention to read up on the background behind out modern air security aparatus.

Smiley90

Mhmm I used to take trains pre-Schengen and it was a non-issue back then, too. I mean, i understand WHY it is how it is, I just don't think it has to be. We're on the same page. :P

LondonElite

It's part of the unique pre-deregulation IATA convention that connect one person with one ticket. There's nothing unsolvable around security in this matter, just revenue protectionism for airlines.

Adam1222

well obviously you're only asking about this because a round trip is cheaper than 2 one ways. so it's not "revenue protectionism" anymore than it is preserving consumer choice. If what is suggested here was allowed, there would be a third party market in matching passengers to find people they could split roundtrip tickets with.

Often1

The reason is simple. In the private market place in which we live, both carriers and consumers are benefited by the sale of round-trip tickets which cost substantially less than two one-way tickets.

Allowing a ticketed passenger to resell half of the round-trip defeats that business proposition.

All of this comes back to the fact that air tickets are not sold per mile, they are sold based on supply and demand in different markets.

If Passenger A wants to fly LHR-CDG and Passenger B wants to fly CDG-LHR, they each buy a single ticket for the route they wish to fly.

LondonElite

You could easily do this with train or bus tickets, which are not unique to the passenger. I suppose no one really bothers because the price differences are not significant, which highlights the archaic nature of airline pricing, stuck in the 1970s business model.

Efrem

Except that in the 1970s, they didn't care who flew. You could even buy an "open ticket," with the passenger's name to be filled in later. This was useful if you knew that someone was going to attend a meeting, but you didn't know who, and didn't want to pay the last-minute (or even last-week) fare.

The changes came more or less in the same era as security concerns, but they have nothing to do with security. Airlines are happy to sell a ticket to someone who walks up to the counter an hour before a flight. Changing the name on an existing ticket raises no security issues that last-minute purchases don't raise. Airlines often cite "security" for anything because people tend not to look deeply into security claims. In this case, it's bogus. The reason is revenue maximization, pure and simple.