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I tried looking for this scenario here, but I haven’t found anything the answers the entirety of the question yet. Sorry if it is a duplicate and I couldn’t find it!

We’re traveling from Asia to the US back on a return flight. That ticket has already been booked, but plans for one person have changed and they are planning on going elsewhere in Asia. So one person will be taking the return flight and the other won’t. However, it’s easier for the person staying in Asia to find an onward flight from the connecting airport in the multi leg flight, so they want to abandon the flight halfway through.

To be precise, the situation is:

  1. DPS - SIN
  2. SIN - LAX

That is for the person that is going to the US. The other person wants to do:

  1. DPS - SIN
  2. SIN - ICN

If they were alone, this would be fine, with some asterisks for baggage problems. However, since the two people are traveling together, what happens to the baggage of the two people for the second leg of the journey? Does one set of luggage get removed? If only the person that continues to the US checks luggage, I assume nothing happens, right?

I also assume that the person that is skipping the final leg won’t be able to check any luggage at all?

I saw this answer in the past:

PPBM: What happens if you check in luggage and then miss the flight? And it covers some of this question, but not all of it. If I’m trying to prepare for this situation, it sounds like I should check baggage under the person who is heading to the US, and no baggage under the person skipping out? What it seems to suggest is that the person heading to the US may get removed from the plane? Is that accurate?

Would love any insight into this! Sorry if there’s anything not clear in this description.

Thanks!

Mike S.
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2 Answers2

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Your safest way the handle this is to split the reservation. Airlines can do this easily and in most cases it's not a big deal. Just call them and ask to split it. After the split you have two independent reservations and individual PNRs. The ticket numbers stay the same, so the tickets themselves remain unchanged.

I also assume that the person that is skipping the final leg won’t be able to check any luggage at all?

Correct. There is no way for them to retrieve the luggage in SIN.

Does one set of luggage get removed?

That's a moot point. See previous question. There is only one set of luggage

If only the person that continues to the US checks luggage, I assume nothing happens, right?

I highly doubt it and I wouldn't risk it. Doing nothing feels like a significant security hole: it's not unrealistic to assume that person B (not on the flight) uses person A (on the flight but not very smart) as a mule to carry nefarious stuff for them. At they very least I would expect them to pull you out for some serious questioning.

Hilmar
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Depends on who the baggage is tagged to.

Typically, if you're traveling in a group, all the bags are linked to one person, and usually this is shown by attaching the baggage tags to that person's boarding pass.

In your case, assuming your flights are on one ticket, your bags will be tagged all the way through to LAX. If they're linked to the person who no-shows for the connecting flight, they will all be offloaded. If they're linked to the person who continues, they will all be sent to LAX. Both options sound pretty poor for you. Better options are:

  • Ask them to "short check" one bag only to SIN. This is likely to be denied.
  • Have the person going to ICN take everything they need in carry-on baggage, and check in nothing at all. The person going to LAX can check in bags and continue normally.

All that said, are you sure there's a financial advantage to flying to SIN in the first place? There are direct flights from DPS to ICN, or you could get cheap connecting tickets via eg. KUL or BKK on Air Asia.

lambshaanxy
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