Questions and Answers

Is it legal to fly say:
New York to Los Angeles via Toronto, or
London to Manchester via Amsterdam, or
Medan to Jakarta via Singapore?

Legal, I don’t see why not.

But for the NYC-YYZ-LAX example you’d probably have to clear US Customs in YYZ. If you had a checked bag I think it would have to be re-screened. I’m not positive about this though.

Someone can probably explain better, but wouldn’t that be defined as cabotage law and therefore not allowed?

I don’t think it’s illegal, as think of the Air France flight from CDG-LAX-PPT. Which would be considered a domestic flight, but it stops in LAX.

It would just be extremely inconvenient as you’d have to clear immigration multiple times.
For your example of NYC-YYZ-LAX, you’d have to clear Canadian immigration in YYZ, and then also go through USA Pre-Clearance Immigration in YYZ. So very inconvienent. I think that’s why airlines don’t market flights like these generally.

I think [USER=1436]@rickyw[/USER] is right about the cabotage laws. The airlines can’t do it but a person could though it would be inconvenient. And even with the AF flight to PPT, customers have to clear US Customs.

legally this is not okay if the operating airline is registered in the country of your point of transfer. The airline cannot ticket you that way.

The reason being foreign airlines usually are not allowed to operate domestically in another country unless there are some (very liberalized) agreements such as the EU single market and AUS-NZ open skies agreement.

LHR-AMS-MAN should be ok because EU airlines are free to operate wherever they like in the EU regardless of their country of origin.

NY-LA via YYZ is different because you have to enter the US in YYZ so i’m not sure. But you definitely cannot book, say, LA to Palau via Seoul with Asiana or Korean Air.

Air France’s CDG-LAX-PPT is different because it’s a French airline operating a domestic French flight

I was making the (perhaps incorrect) assumption that we were talking about 2 separate tickets since I don’t think an airline would/could allow these routings.

Yeah, it’s cabotage for LGA-YYZ-LAX unless both legs are operated by a US airline OR if the YYZ is a stopover exceeding a certain number of hours. [URL]https://thepointsguy.com/news/illegal-itinerary-mistake-story/[/URL]