Tedgale-sorry, I have NO SYMPATHY for your silly and unreasonable rant against Czech Airlines. Do you seriously think they will let you get off the airplane, on an intermediary stop, when you tell them you have no luggage, just like that? Do you remember Lockerbie? And before that, the bombing of TWA 840 over Athens, on a Rome to Athens flight? What was that? Why, an under the seat bomb left onboard the flight by a female Palestinian terrorist, who got off the airplane in Rome-and left her little signature for the entire Greek-American family from Annapolis, Md. who were unfortunate enough to be sitting in that row when the flight was inbound to Athens. Four family members blown out of the aircraft-not to mention a hole in the aircraft of course. Luckily, most of the people on that flight survived because they were at a low altitude when the IED detonated.

You acted like an idiot. And you deserved the treatment you got.

Spygirl did you miss the point that tedgale specifically asked if he could do this and was told yes?
Here's an important part of the message:
"hen I got to Prague airport for the return flight, I explained to the ticket agent that I wanted to get off in Montreal and that my spouse (booked Montreal Prague Montreal) had checked all our luggage on that ticket.

She said no problem -- if you have no luggage, they will let you off, despite your destination being Toronto."

So if you think tedgale, a normal traveler is an "idiot" for thinking he could get off, what do you call the paid representative of Czech Airlines who also thought he could?
If I were tedgale I'd be as angry at the Czech rep for giving me wrong information as I would be at anything else -- and if fact I think that is one of his main points here.

Spygirl,it's interesting that you state clearly anyone who doesn't know you can't get off is an idiot. Therefore you, yourself, have admitted that the staff of CzechAirlines includes idiots. Isn't that enough reason NOT to fly with them?

Yeah, long before 9/11 and heightened airline security they didn't allow passengers to get off the plane at a stop, unless of course you had to change planes. I remember having to stay on the plane 15-20 years ago. There definitely should have been an amended boarding pass issued.

It seems the ground staff at Prague were at fault – they should have either reissued you a different boarding pass, if your ticket permitted this, or informed you that you had to fly to your final destination as ticketed. It seems they also failed to inform the aircraft of a change in the passenger roster.

Having said that, I think the cabin crew response, if maybe a bit discourteous, was thoroughly justified given they did not have the relevant information and were facing the possibility of terrorist action. I for one am pleased that they acted accordingly – I would be extremely worried if they just let people walk off the aircraft with the possibility of them leaving luggage on board either checked or a secreted carry on bag somewhere.

And ThinGorjus if you had a taxi smash-up and failed to get back to the airport in time for a connecting flight you were already checked in for, the airline staff on realising you were missing, after the aircraft had boarded, would need to try to locate you in the airport terminal. Once this search proved unsuccessful your baggage would need to be located and offloaded meaning a search of the aircraft hold, this would cause a substantial delay causing major inconvenience for other passengers, some of whom would likely miss connections, the aircraft could also miss its takeoff slot meaning further delay, and if it was late at night the flight could even be cancelled if it ran into airport curfew problems.

I'm with Thingorjus, it never occured to me that people are prevented from deplaning at an intermediate stop.
It makes sense from a security standpoint, I just hadn't thought about it before. I have been on flights whose takeoffs were delayed when an unaccompanied piece of luggage had to be off-loaded at the last minute.

I haven't flown a non non-stop flight in a very long time. Are tickets/boarding passes actually examined when passengers deplane at a stop that is not the final one?

tedgale, I am sorry you have such a bad experience. It is sometimes difficult to convey all the nuances of an incident by typing it out, and you did do this reluctantly it seems. Whatever the policies and security precautions, there is no excuse for not being given a corrected boarding pass, nor for the average passenger being grabbed, though it's hard to know what provocation or moods there might have been. You started off by saying this was a significant but resolvable issue. Grabbing and rudeness aside, what do you think should have been done?

I would still like to hear the details on your time in P, R, and T--'flawless' does indeed sound wonderful.