On the eve of your departure for sunny Australia, your mother dies. Setting aside travel insurance and full/partial/non-reimbursement issues, why can’t you sell your $2000 ticket either full-price or with a discount (or even give it away) to a member of your family, or even to a perfect stranger, as long as you’re not ‘scalping’? In other words, why isn’t your plane ticket transferable?
Because the name on the ticket has to match the name on the passport? Makes sense if you’re trying to avoid terrorism.
Simply speaking, two reasons:
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Tickets are named due to security reasons. Of course, nothing stops someone feom just walking up to the counter and buying one - all you need is money and a photo ID.
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Even if there were no security reasons, the airlines still want you to buy a new ticket, or jump through hoops to get your reimbursement (or partial reimbursement) back.
Suo: The passport argument would make sense on an international flight. Domestics are a different matter, for all I know. As far as security is concerned, anyone with money CAN indeed purchase a ticket, so it would be a limited form of protection.
And it’s been ages since I last traveled on a train but IIRC this rule doesn’t apply.
It did on the Eurostar, but that was only because it went through the Chunnel. The train I look from Paris to Le Havre recently did not have named tickets.