Originally Posted by
anabolism
I just noticed that under Flight Application, component (H) seems especially clumsily worded, looking like a copy and paste error to me:
H.A MINIMUM OF 3 AND MAXIMUM OF 16 SEGMENTS
INCLUDING SURFACE SEGMENTS BETWEEN ANY 2
AIRPORTS ARE PERMITTED FOR THE ENTIRE
JOURNEY.
I think the words "between any two airports" are there in error. I think the rules are trying to say "A minimum of three and a maximum of sixteen segments, including surface segments, are permitted for the entire journey." It makes no sense to write "a minimum of three segments ... between any two airports" when obviously the minimum is one segment.
Component (I) reads:
THE SAME CITY PAIRS/SECTORS CANNOT BE FLOWN
MORE THAN ONCE IN THE SAME DIRECTION
I'm not sure if this was a recent change. I'm looking at the rules as retrieved by EF.
I'm having trouble understanding exactly what your issue is? A surface segment necessarily will exist between two airports, as in, the traveller will make their way between the two airports by some other method than flying by virtue of the xonex ticket. This "surface" segment counts as one of the 16 segments. In any event, my recollection is that this language has been like this for some time, and was inserted when oneworld clarified that coterminals no longer qualified (as in a transfer from NRT to HND was now a segment as opposed to quite some years ago when that was not a segment). This section is also worded this way via the link on one world.com:
- (h) A minimum of 3 and maximum of 16 segments, including surface segments between any 2 airports, are permitted for the entire journey. Free flight segments within each continent are limited as follow
Indeed, I just did a quick check and the "2 airports" language has been there since before 2014 (I'm not going to spend any more time searching).