Originally Posted by
mahasamatman
People do not understand the definition of cabotage. It's not cabotage since the origin and destination are in the U.S. and UA is a U.S. flag carrier.
It's no problem if UA does it, but AC would not be allowed to do it.
100% correct. Non US flagged carriers cannot deliver a person from the US to the US as an origin and destination, no matter what country you connect. Us carriers can route you any way they want as the ticket is US-US and US carriers are operating it. There is no reason for protectionist rules to apply to a ticket issued on the carriers of the country that are getting protected.