Originally Posted by
LondonElite
Why do people [airline apologists?] keep going on about the CoC as if they were the Ten Commandments that Moses received? They are just some rules that one or more airlines dreamed up, no more, no less.
Almost all of the comparable examples posted in this thread (and many others) are perfectly relevant, if the service supplier dreamed up a similar set of T&Cs.
I have a shop that sells beach toys. I have a rule that customers must buy things exactly as they are in the shop, and must take the entirety of their purchase with them, off my property.
A man comes in and wants to buy a bucket. I sell them for $5. I also sell a combination of bucket, shovel, and tractor in a fishnet bag for $4 (my Chinese supplier sends them to me like this.)
The man says "How strange, you're willing to give me more for less. Oh well, I just want the bucket, my son already has a shovel and a tractor, so why don't you keep those, sell them to someone else for $2, and I'll give you the full $4 just for the bucket."
I say "I can't do that, it goes against my terms and conditions."
"But that's stupid. Everyone's a winner if we do what I suggest. You get $6, more than you would under any other scenario."
"Sorry, but them's the rules. Either buy the bucket for $5 or the combination bag for $4."
"OK, but I will throw out the other two things as soon as I get out of the shop."
"You are not allowed to do that. Make sure you take them off my property."
It is the same thing.
As I have said before, if you were to start airfare rules from a blank sheet today, you would never get into the idiocy that exists today.
Another poor analogy (don't feel bad - there are 10,000 of them on FT and all equally poor). The carrier situation is about demand for travel between a city pair and the airfare is established in this free market economy by the rules of supply and demand. The carrier charges too much or little and the carrier goes out of business (just try the customer service lines for Eastern, Northwest, Braniff, Pan Am and so on if you want to double-check).
As you note, you are free to to sell any product(s) for any price you choose and on any conditions you want. Buyers are free to accept those or reject them and go elsewhere if they choose.
The general misperception in hidden-city is that the carrier can
require a pax to fly a segment. The carrier cannot. The sole issue at hand is, "what is the fare?" The fare from A-B is $100 and the fare from A-C is $75, it just so happens there is a connection at B. If you want to fly A-B, you pay $100 and if you want to fly A-C, you pay $75. If you buy an A-C ticket and decide to end at B, you owe $25. It's that simple.
FT is full of rants about this, there is a well-written GAO report on the topic and it's the subject of all kinds of analysis. It all comes down to a free-market economy. If you don't like HCT, you don't fly carriers who insist on it.