Originally Posted by vcflyer

The way the KE people explained it to me was that the immigration people in Guam may look at my passport and notice the lack of a passport stamp from another country after my departure from SFO, and therefore would refuse to let me enter Guam and also penalize KE. I asked if I could quickly go through immigration and re-enter at ICN and they said that would not work either because I would need to show that I had spent at least 24 hours in a non-U.S. country before I could fly back to the U.S. on a non-U.S. airline. Cabotage apparently is simply a way to protect lousy U.S. airlines from competition on domestic routes. Interestingly, KE told me that most immigration officers do not notice a cabotage violation but it was a risk that KE was unwilling to take.

Regarding whether I had one ticket or two, I am not sure how it worked technically. I do know that my baggage was checked through to Guam and I had to wait for a little while at ICN as they went and fetched it. I am not as familiar with the technical stuff as you guys here on FT but wouldn't it have been one itinerary for SQ to have been able to check my baggage through to Guam?