Return Flights - are they null and void if you don’t take first leg?

gaillimh

Hi.

I have return flights booked with Aer Lingus from Shannon to New York.

In the meantime though it turns out that I need to fly to the States several days earlier and to a different part of the States, whose closest airport Aer Lingus don’t fly to. I’ll still be flying home from NYC. My original thought was to change the outbound flight to fly into somewhere else and get a separate connection but the flight times don’t work out really.

So my question is - if I kept my original flights but just didn’t use the outbound leg - would my return leg still be valid? I think I remember reading before that if you don’t show for the first leg then the return is no longer valid.

Anyone know the up to date position on that? Cheers

Caranica

You will invalidate the return. The only airline that it won't effect is Ryanair as they are a point to point airline but all the major carriers will cancel the return if the outbound flight isn't taken. You can try to cancel the outbound sector and see if that works but don't just skip it.

Jim2007

Check with the airline, but usually yes.

endofrainbow

the only way this could be circumvented with EI is if outbound and inbound were booked separately.

Suvarnabhumi

I had a similar situation with EI, but it was only Dublin to London. I told them in advance that I wouldn't use the outbound flight, but I still needed the return and they said that was fine. Contact them and see what they say.

goingnowhere

For European flights Aer Lingus price as two singles (this is nearly always true unless there was some strange offer/discount/sale thing involved), so missing a flight should not be a problem

Transatlantic are still priced as return tickets, if you fail to show for the first segment the ticket will be cancelled. You need to call and get the ticket repriced for the trip you actually want to make.