Return ticket issues after not completing a leg of the journey
My family flew in Kiev-Paris-Dublin to visit us in Ireland, end-to-end return flights booked with AF-KLM.
Unfortunately, they were stopped at the boarding for the Paris to Dublin flight, due to an Irish visa issue that wasn't spotted by anyone until that point of time. The AF agent in the airport suggested they speak to an Irish embassy and try to rectify the visa.
The visa was fixed and they are in Dublin now, but the KLM customer service says that they will need to pay a large (circa 250 EUR) penalty fee to be allowed to fly back on their return tickets, since they didn't use their journey to Dublin, and that they can only complete a (possible!) check-in for flight in the airport itself.
Is that sort of penalty legal and what can we potentially do to avoid the fee/make sure they can fly tomorrow?
EDIT: Went to the airport, AF/KLM told us to pay 250 EUR per person to fly the original return tickets. Time was unfortunately very tight, so we ended up going with this option.
Also, if we had any idea this was the case even a day or two ago, we would have just flown with Air Moldova flight as suggested in the answers.
Overall, they followed all recommendations of the airline staff, starting from their suggestion to remain in Paris to fix the visa, and still ended up paying a huge fine for no reason at all.
Best Answer
You are lucky that the return flights are usable at all.
Often, when you don't fly one leg, all remaining legs of the ticket are forfeited and lost.
The visa issue is exclusively the travellers responsibility, and no airline covers that risk for you. The airline let them board for the first leg, which they probably shouldn't have, but that would have been only the airline's issue if the visa's couldn't be cleared, and they had to fly back immediately (which was not the case).
So the airline allowing you to change the flights back for a relatively small amount, instead of asking you to buy completely new one-way tickets is already accomodating. Take it, and be thankful.
Pictures about "Return ticket issues after not completing a leg of the journey"
What happens if you miss the first leg of a return flight?
"Normally what happens is if you miss one leg, your entire itinerary is cancelled," he said over the phone. "That's just a standard practice. They assume you can't catch up or \u2014 and it's an issue with revenue \u2014 they're funny about how you use their tickets.What happens if I miss a leg of my flight?
If legs are missed, airlines can cancel the whole journey, including any future returns. This is something that travelers often forget about. They may change plans on the spur of the moment, choosing a scenic road trip or rail journey, but plan to use their pre-booked return for the trip home.SOLVED: Bush trip not completing! Workaround for MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2020
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