Ask Alex: Alex McWhirter answers your travel queries.

Dear Alex,

I understand that some big airlines in Europe are now refusing to through check passengers who make connections when they travel with separate tickets. How can this be? I would have thought the airlines would make every effort to help their customers especially when they are paying a lot of money for their tickets.

Geoff Saunders, Dubai

ALEX REPLIES: This is becoming a problem at major hubs both in Europe and elsewhere. And it's all to do with cutting costs. For a start, low-cost carriers such as easy Jet and Ryanair in Europe, along with their equivalents elsewhere, have never through checked passengers and their luggage. So if you connect at, say, Singapore when flying a low-cost carrier from Bangkok to Jakarta you would have to clear immigration, claim your bags on arrival, proceed to the departures zone and …