Originally Posted by
Often1
Not necessarily.
It is fairly routine for AA, and other US carriers, to rebook passengers when the COC and fare rules would permit the carrier to simply cancel the ticket. Maybe it is bad practice, but the fact that a front line agent accepted a passenger's version for rebooking purposes does not mean much.
It might actually make AA look decent in front of a judge used to hearing stories about European carriers in this situation.
The onus is on AA to prove that it does NOT have to pay the passenger, not the other way round - AA claims that the passenger did not fly the outbound leg and that the return was therefore cancelled - the passenger is likely to be able to convince a judge that the airline did rebook him on the outbound and so had no right to cancel the inbound ( even if AA was to try to make such an assertion in court )