Originally Posted by
entropy
lol, safety concerns? logistical concerns? what about misconnects?
Its strictly prohibited because airlines want to rip off people going from A to B, but consider A-B-C to be "gravy". I don't blame people for doing it, but its not 'risk free'. As for the airlines, hidden city, throw-away RT's, and min-stay/saturday night requirements are all about making sure "business travelers" don't take advantage of "leisure" fares.
I disagree with your logic behind it They are usually to tier 2 markets served by a LCC. The prices are matched to not become obsolete in those cities (without the flow traffic, the local origin/destination traffic, and smaller city-Intl traffic may not be enough to support the frequency or even service at all.) People don't hidden city on the LCC because their route structure doesn't make it possible, but the majors match the prices and may have a hub nearby, making it low hanging fruit for those that choose to effectively void their ticket by not following the T&C of their ticket issuance.
The classic example that I see lots of at my airport is XXX-ORD-MKE. AA and UA fly the ORD-MKE leg from ORD for logistics, but the price leader, the LCC, doesn't. It would be impossible to fly XXX-ORD-MKE on most of the LCC's and drop the ORD-MKE leg, as their hub is not ORD, while AA/UA get the ticket fraud due to their route structure.
It isn't just on "business fares", it's on all of the fares that the LCC publishes, be them "business" or "leisure".