Ok – I’m in Detroit heading for Toledo – I have a three hour layover. I’m chatting with someone in the airport and find that I can drive to Toledo in 45 minutes rather than wait three hours and then have a one hour flight. So I do.
However Delta (Northwest) has different ideas. They cancel my return flight because I didn’t take the second leg (from Detroit to Toledo) of my existing flight. They then tell me that if I want to fly back to LA I will have to have my ticket repriced at the “walk up rate”. What the hell is that all about?
I’m sure it has something to do with the “ghost city” routine. For instance, there was a time when it cost less to fly from LA to San Antonio than from LA to Dallas, but the plane you were on to San Antonio went through Dallas. So folks would simply fly to “San Antonio”, the ghost city, but get off in Dallas. When American discovered their passengers were not all stupid, they made the rule that if you didn’t get on the plane in San Antonio, you couldn’t fly from Dallas to LA (on that ticket). So people would simply get off in Dallas, do their business, then drive the hour and change to San Antonio, get on the plane there, and fly back through Dallas to LA. Not to be outdone, American then said they would cancel the return flight of anyone not flying the “second leg”. They gotcha there. And I think they have me here.
Can anyone say “Southwest”
JVH
