Can I skip a leg in an inbound flight, without losing the outbound one?

Question

I will be flying Air China to and from Shanghai. I have the following flights on a single ticket:

• CDG-PEK (CA 943) + (1 hour transfer) + PEK-SHA (CA 1521) ← this last leg is the one in my question
• (the stay in Shanghai)
• SHA-PEK + PEK-CDG

After purchasing the ticket, I realized it would be practical to stay in Beijing for a few days after the CDG-PEK flight. Of course plan A is to try to move the PEK-SHA flight to a later date.

If this is not possible (or very costly), the plan B is to discard the PEK-SHA flight and get to Shanghai by train after the stay in Beijing.

My questions:

• Would a no-show on the PEK-SHA flight jeopardize the return flight to Paris?
• Would sending advance information to the airline help?
• Would it be possible to cancel the PEK-SHA leg without impacting the rest of the flights (in- and outbound)

I will call Air China to ask these questions as well but I would like to have a heads-up from someone who did that before.

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Note: there are similar questions about skipping the last leg of a flight (for various reasons, including cheaper fares), in my case this is an intermediate leg in a flight that has more legs after that.

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EDIT following @Hilmar recommendation to append my answer here: I called Air China and they gave me an outrageous price for the change (initially I thought they were giving the price in RMB :) so I will have to keep the flights and hop like a flea between Shanghai and Beijing.

Answer 1

Would a no-show on the PEK-SHA flight jeopardize the return flight to Paris?

Yes. The airline will cancel all your remaining legs. You MAY be able to talk your way out of it by claiming you accidentally missed the leg, but that's dicey and a non-starter if you want to stay a few days in PEK.

I strongly recommend: DON'T BE NO SHOW.

Would sending advance information to the airline help?

This would be a ticket change. The airline will reprice the ticket for your itinerary and you would have to pay the fare difference plus any applicable change fees. If your lucky, the new itinerary is cheaper but that's unlikely.

Would it be possible to cancel the PEK-SHA leg without impacting the rest of the flights (in- and outbound)

Again, that would be an itinerary change including repricing and any applicable change fees.

You can always ask or to price it out yourself and see how how much it cost you. Airlines try to rake you over the coals whenever they can, so don't get your hopes up.

I once had a booking on United BOS->LHR->FRA->BOS and needed to change the date for the LHR->FRA leg. The flight change was extremely expensive: much more than a brand new ticket from LHR->FRA. So I ended up buying a new ticket from LHR->FRA and drop the original flight. I got lucky that they didn't reprice the whole ticket but still ended up paying $250 change fee (in addition to the new ticket).

So I ended up paying a $250 fine for not taking a flight that I had already paid for. That's the airlines for you.

Answer 2

The only way to be sure this goes as planned is to change the booking:

• Either moving the flight involved a few days later. Note that this means you switch from a layover to a stopover, which very often means higher fares.
• Or removing that flight from the booking. You then end up with an “open jaw” booking where you go to one city and then return from another. But the first flight being a direct flight rather than a flight with a connection, it is also likely to be more expensive.

If you don’t do one of those:

• If you have checked bags they will most likely to be checked to your final destination, and you won’t be able to get them in Beijing.
• The airline is likely to cancel all further segments on your ticket (I.e. your return flight).

Whether they will actually do it depends on the airline’s policies and the fare rules for your ticket, but it’s quite common with traditional airlines: the itinerary with a connection is likely to have been less expensive than a direct flight, and if you try to remove a segment they consider you are trying to game them. Search for “hidden-city ticketing” for more on the topic.

Answer 3

I called Air China and they gave me an outrageous price for the change (initially I thought they were giving the price in RMB :) so I will have to keep the flights and hop like a flea between Shanghai and Beijing.