Originally Posted by
fannys (Post # 1)
I have heard rumors that you will get fined by the airline if deciding to travel only one part of the entire leg of a one-way flight. It's not that they can force me to get on that flight, like, I might have gotten frightened as hell by something, fainted, been delayed and decided it best to find another way to travel, IDK.
The practice to which you you are referring is called hidden city ticketing or "skip-lagging".
Obviously any checked-in luggage would go to the final destination; and if this were done on the outbound portion of a round-trip ticket, the return flights would be canceled.
A traveller who made a regular practice of this could face consequences including closure of frequent flyer account and bills for the higher fare. Repetition of such behavior is evidence of intent to violate the rules.
However, for a very rare (as a percentage of total flights with that airline) or first-time event, no, nothing is likely to happen. As you note, the airline has no knowledge of the reason you would fail to board your connecting flight.