Bear96

If you booked AAA-BBB-CCC, but irops led to the airline re-routing you AAA-DDD-CCC, let's assume at the same (or very similar) ultimate departure and arrival times, you wouldn't be entitled to anything. The airline would have upheld its end of the "offer," which is getting you from AAA to CCC.

mario

To make it simple, just make it a fixed-fee type of thing and make it prominent during the booking process.

Problem solved.

snaxmuppet

Again, this is a misunderstanding of the issue...

You aren't getting more or less in that sense.

If I buy a JFK-AMS ticket or a cheaper JFK-LHR-AMS ticket I am getting the same product (JFK-AMS) but via a different service. It is only if you jump ship at LHR does the product change as it is now a JFK-LHR product and it is now via a direct, more expensive, service.

However, using your analogy (I hate these analogies as so few of them actually are analogous to the original problem) ... anyway... if you have signed a contract with the gardening service to mow the front and back yards and got a discount because your front and back yards together were over say, 500sq yards, and then when they turn up you say don't do the back yard, if the front yard is 300sq yards (so no discount), then yes, I would expect them to charge you the higher rate as you have broken the contract and have now got the small yard rate instead of the discounted big yard rate.

As I say, I don't like analogies but people seem to love them so I would say that my example is more analogous to airline pricing as it should be... drop the last leg and you have then possibly bought a more expensive product.

Akoz

Surely the answer for any airline wishing to go down this route would be to show a "discount" amount for the routing involved, similar to the way BA holidays show the saving if the flight and hotel were to be booked separately. There basic argument is that they are selling you a service from City X to City Y (via Hub Z) competing with the local airline flying direct hence the "discount", and not long haul product A followed by short haul product B.

LondonElite

Takiteasy

littlefish

Whilst I don't follow the language fully, I think there is a lot in this post by Alexwuk from which an element of a legal argument could be considered. Herein is something which (I strongly suspect) could set the table for the Court of evidencable unfair behaviour from one party in the contract. How much weight in the overall set of issues this would carry is another matter. Ultimately, I think, the major EU legacy carriers must be aware that EU based Courts would be forced to consider monopolistic behaviour as against the consumer.
Again, for sure there would be other elements in the equation and many of those pros and cons are set out in this thread.
However, I can't see why BA or Lufty or the like would want to risk an expose of their perfectly successful business model in this way (even if they win the immediate battle).

Often1

This is exactly what AF has done. It is specified and based on class of service and long-mid-short haul.

Had LH done this, it would have prevailed in its case as the court did not either invalidate the practice or find that LH had acted contrary to the either the COC or any other principle. Rather, the court found that the passenger had no ready means of calculating what the change would be. With a fixed fee, one could simply look it up, e.g. long-haul in F = EUR X. Then the passenger can make a rational decision, pay the fee or not as the case may be and reroute himself.

alexwuk

Yep: the rules are very clear: any failure to take all flights booked in sequence will allow BA to refuse further use of the ticket unless the fare difference is paid. BA also reserve the right to "request" (sic) the fare difference even if you don't fly, but the only contractual sanction they reserve is denial of further travel on the ticket.

&
THIS! is the crux of the argument. The airline fare rules say that you're right. However, if you go to the airline's website and price up an A-B and then B-C flight, it may well offer you a cheaper fare with a 22-23 hour gap in City B. That's what you asked the airline for, that's what the airline proffered and then you and the airline contracted. The airline "fare rules" state that you're not buying a ticket to City B at all, and some CoCs may even assert that they retain the right to fly you from City A to City C in whatever way they like they like given their byzantine Monopolistic fare rules say you are "in transit", even if you expect to sleep in your oldest friend's house in City B that night and bought your ticket only because of that City B routing. Most CoCs do not say this. I have never seen any airline booking screen warn that intermediary points are considered replaceable "Transit points". (I'm a BA GGL/CCR/GfL, AA 1MM, VS Gold....)

The law is clear: the airline offered you the A-B and B-C flights and that's what enticed you to pay them money to contract. That the airline thinks that city B is merely a replaceable transit point is never made clear to purchasers in the "invitation to treat" stage of purchase and unless it is, I'd think any person would have excellent grounds to win in court that replacing A-B-C with A-D-C is a breach of contract on behalf of the airline.

Takiteasy

littlefish

Its a rare day I'm not concurring with two points in a single Globaliser post . Anyway, here goes.
1. On the loss point. I'd be supposing its for the airline to prove its loss in such an case. All the Court knows is I paid £2,000 for the routings / dates / times selected; and the airline said - "sure". The fact that another customer may have paid £3,000 for a similar service being offered at the time for the same date / time is supposition. Sure it was priced and available but wouldn't it be a fair defence to suggest the airline would have taken that £3,000 rather than my £2,000 had it been confident of the £3,000 offer getting sold?
There's broader nuances for sure, but I'm dubious a loss of £1,000 is evidenced here.

2. On the contract point. This is where the test of nerve comes in! Different to 1, this time its for the consumer to be comfortable the contract term is unfair (or the amount requested is somehow disproportionate) or otherwise unenforceable and expect the Courts or mediation services to agree with them. I therefore don't strictly believe that you necessarily must pay an amount merely because it is in a contract. Granted I'd not be assuming a 'win' in the sort of case being discussed.

On the second item. In a real world non-airline scenario I have pushed back at a large entity who sent me a big and (I argued) inappropriate bill. It never got to court. After 18 months of to & fro and their threat of Court, in the end they elected not to follow through. They made several firm arguments and demands I must pay. I countered and held my nerve. The whole experience was not nice.
My point here is that I wouldn't suggest going looking for a fight on these sort of issues - and thus don't push ex-EUs overhard.

alexwuk

No, the analogy is wrong. A much more apt analog is: The buyer pays the vendor for four apples and walks out with three apples. The consumer's consumption is an included subset of what was contracted; that's the weakness of the vendor's tort and loss claim: the vendors costs are demonstrably *lower* because of the (theoretical) breach and the consumer didn't consume anything to which their ticket (and CoC) did not say they were entitled.

The airlines only defence at law is essentially that the consumer didn't really want the burden of eating the fourth apple and therefore that the airline should be required by contract be entitled to tort loss if the consumer to fails to consume the (Negative Utility) fourth apple.

To revert to microeconomics 301: the hypothetical "loss" is entirely based in the Negative Utility of the consumer not the Marginal Cost of the Producer, which is the ultimate hallmark of Molopoly pricing. Common Law generally abhors enforcing this kind of contract (hence BA don't have the balls to try to include it in the CoC), and public policy often prohibits it.

Greg66

Often1

LH did not sue for its losses, it sued to enforce its contract. If it's contract had been better written (and perhaps on appeal it will be found to have been written perfectly well). the contract would have called for OP to pay the price for the new route flown. Thus, if he purchased A-B-C and dropped B-C, his ticket is repriced to A-B. If that is more than A-C, he owes the difference.

The entire argument about loss is irrelevant.

Greg66