Say a multi-city itinerary no longer suits you, so you skip one leg and turn up for the next. On a single ticket that usually cancels every flight after the skipped one, automatically.
Singapore Airlines: Article 3
Singapore Airlines publishes its General Conditions of Carriage on its own site, updated 28 December 2024. Article 3, Paragraph 3 is headed Sequential use of flight sectors in Ticket; No Show. It opens: “All the flight sectors in a Passenger’s Ticket must be used in sequence from the initial place of departure as shown on the Ticket.”
A sub-paragraph gives the consequence. If you do not tell the airline beforehand that you will skip a sector or fly them out of order, the carrier “is entitled to cancel any unused flight sector(s) in the Ticket”. That needs no agreement from you, and the airline does not have to warn you first.
The rule covers the return leg of a round trip as well as onward connections, because a return is a later sector on the same ticket.
Philippine Airlines: a named rule with a deadline
Philippine Airlines (PAL) has a page on this, headed No-Show Downline Cancellation: “If you do not show up for a flight (your ‘Missed Flight’) that has connecting and/or returning flights, these onward or return flights will be automatically cancelled.”
- The deadline. Tell PAL at least 24 hours before your initial departure that you will not take a flight. Inside that window the cancellation happens on its own, triggered when the missed flight is tagged at the airport.
- What survives. The reservations are cancelled, but the ticket is not. It stays valid and can be rebooked, converted to travel credits or refunded under its own fare conditions.
- Getting the flights back. This depends on seat availability, a change fee and any fare difference in the class you end up in.
Cathay Pacific: the ticket itself lapses
Cathay’s General Conditions of Carriage are a PDF on cathaypacific.com. The published copy carries an effective date of 24 September 2012, and it is the version on the site today. Article 3.3 is headed COUPON SEQUENCE: “The Ticket will not be honoured and will lose its validity if the Coupons (or flights mentioned in the Ticket) are not used in the sequence provided in the Ticket.”
That goes further than Singapore Airlines. Cathay describes a ticket that stops being valid, not a right to cancel what is left. Article 8.1.9 lists failure to comply with 3.3 among the grounds on which the airline may refuse to carry you.
Notice protects the booking, not the price
Singapore Airlines writes the cost into the same clause. If you give prior notification, the carrier “is entitled to recompute the Fares” for the part of the ticket you still intend to fly, and you pay the difference from what you paid. A through fare is priced on the whole journey, so what remains is often dearer on its own. That is why the sequence rule exists.
If you decline the recomputed fare, the airline can void the unused portion and refund you under Article 11. Article 11 opens by saying “not all Tickets qualify for refund”, and on a restricted fare the refund can be small.
The call is still worth making. A recomputed fare is a number you can decide about in advance. An automatic cancellation is a number you find out at the counter.
A delay is not a no-show
PAL says: “Your onward and/or returning flights will not be cancelled if the prior flight is delayed.”
The trigger is being recorded as a no-show at the airport, not arriving late. If the airline made you late on a single ticket, the sequence and your onward flights stand. What the airline owes you for the delay is a separate question, and there is no regional rule in Asia that answers it.
Low-cost carriers: there may be no sequence to break
Checked 25 September 2026. AirAsia has been the subject of heavy media speculation about its finances this month. On 2 September the group announced the “temporary suspension of certain routes, such as Kuala Lumpur to Sydney and Delhi”, and on 18 September it said there is “no question about our commitment to business continuity” (AirAsia Newsroom). We make no prediction either way. For a booking made well ahead, the refund rule and your card are what protect you. How a cancelled flight differs from an airline that stops trading covers both.
The Terms and Conditions of Carriage for AK flights say: “We are strictly a point-to-point carrier, unless you have purchased our FLY-THRU booking.”
- Two separate AirAsia bookings are two contracts. Skipping the first does nothing to the second, because nothing joins them. Nobody is responsible for the connection, so a missed one is yours to pay for.
- FLY-THRU is onward travel on the same itinerary or a single booking reference, with the connection meeting AirAsia’s own connecting time. The sequence rule comes with it: the terms require you to fly the itinerary in order from the point of origin to the final destination.
So the choice is made at booking, not at the airport, and whether two AirAsia legs arrive as one itinerary is decided in its own booking flow.
Article 10.2.1 sets out what the sequence buys. If AirAsia delays, cancels or reschedules the flight before a FLY-THRU connection and you miss it, you get a free move to the next flight that connects within the connecting time. Article 10.3 says those options are the sole and exclusive remedies, so the free move is the whole of what a FLY-THRU is worth when it goes wrong, and two separate bookings are worth nothing at all.
The AK terms require the sequence but do not say what breaking it costs, and they have no downline cancellation clause.
What none of the four publishes
Every document above states the rule and stops short of the arithmetic.
- None publishes the recomputed fare or a method for working it out.
- Singapore Airlines requires prior notification without saying how far ahead. Cathay asks only that you contact it “in advance”. PAL’s 24 hours is the only published deadline of the four, and it binds only PAL.
- None addresses sectors on different airlines under a codeshare or an interline agreement, which is the itinerary where a traveller is most likely to want to drop one.
If a leg has become unwanted, phone the airline before its departure time, not after. Ask what the remaining ticket reprices to and treat that figure as the real cost of the change. If miles paid for the ticket, the redeposit rules are a separate expense, and both Cathay and Singapore Airlines publish what that costs.
whether two AirAsia legs arrive as one itinerary is decided in its own booking flow (affiliate link)