Originally Posted by
drsmithy
Your analogy is broken because you stop paying rent. Ie: an actual loss by the landlord is suffered.
No actual loss is suffered by an airline if you buy a ticket to fly A-B-C and then only fly A-B. None. In fact, at the very least they save money, and probably even make more by reselling the newly vacant seat to another customer.
It's not an analogy so much as a simple statement of fact that if you sign a contract, you are ordinarily bound by the terms of that contract and its penalty provisions except in a few special cases such as an illegal or unconscionable contract, one that violates public policy or when the other party does not hold up his or her own obligations.
The binding provision in this case says that the passenger will pay the fare for traveling A-B if ticketed for A-B-C. That's not an illegal or conscionable provision and as long as the airline has offered to transport you to C, the airline has fulfilled its duty.
This is not a controversial principle: it's Contracts 101. For people who think I am wrong about this, I invite you to test your arguments out in an actual court of law and see what happens.