#airline-policy

#airline-policy

Throwaway ticketing is a simple concept wrapped in complicated airline logic. It happens when a traveler books a round-trip flight, but only uses the outbound leg throwing away the return. Here's an example: You want to fly from New York to London one way. The one-way ticket costs $850. But a round-trip from New York to London and back costs $620. So what do you do? You book the round-trip and skip the return flight.

At the heart of Darongkamas's dispute with Qantas is whether her scooter is a mobility aid, as she argues, or a personal electronic device, as the airline insisted during a six-month long complaints process. Qantas says it aims to be the airline of choice for customers with specific needs, but Darongkamas says Qantas is the only carrier that hasn't let her fly with her Topmate ES33 scooter and its 281Wh lithium battery.

While it may sound surprising, it's completely legal for airlines to overbook flights, and, according to Jesse Neugarten, founder of Dollar Flight Club, they do so "all the time." He continues, telling Travel + Leisure, "Airlines are legally allowed to sell more tickets than there are seats on a plane because they know some people won't show up." Think of it as a numbers game based on historical data. "Most of the time, it works out, but every now and then, too many people show up, and someone has to get bumped."

Down with reclining seats in airplanes! Or, more to the point, up with them. Please sit up straight and pay attention while I make this very serious in-flight announcement: the airline industry should prevent all seats in basic economy from reclining until the general public has shown they know how to use them responsibly. And by use them responsibly I mean: don't recline. Or, if you must, do so courteously and not for the entire flight.