You would have to speak to the ticket vendor, Nigel. But in most cases, failure to use the outward reservation would mean automatic cancellation of the return reservation, the assumption being that you did not travel.

David

Thanks for that David, I will e-mail XL. (Both flights are with them). Personally I couldn't care less if they re-sell our outgoing flight.

This will really depend on the type of ticket you bought. It's definitely not worth just booking the earlier outbound flight and not turning up for the original outbound flight - the most likely consequence is that they'll record you as 'no show' and bump you off your return flight too - the reasoning being that yoiu never went so you won't be returning either! The second most likely outcome is that they'll keep the seats - after all the've been paid for anyway - but charge you the difference if any between the original ticket type price and the cost of a single one-way standard ticket. BA whapped people for years trying to do a similar thing because their return Apex tickets where so much cheaper than buying 2 singles. The cross-Channel ferry companies used to do the same to avoid people buying 2 cheap day returns and only using the outbound half one day and the inbound half of the second 2 weeks later. Anybody trying this wasn;t allowed to board until they paid the diference between the price of the 2 cheap day returns and standard return fare.

So, don't do anything until you've actually checked with the airline - given that both flights are with the same company they might let you change your outbound flight for only a small admin charge which might be even cheaper again than buying a new outbound ticket.

SM

Nearly all, actually im going to stick my neck out, all airlines these days will cancel your return ticket if you do not show for your outward flight.
This is something which comes up time and time again, i think a few years ago you could of done but the airlines wised up to it as from what ive heard this used to happen quite alot with people picking up cheap returns just for the second leg.
Now days if you dont show for the first leg they will automaticly cancel the second.
If you have booked a package holiday you might been in with a chance but wouldnt bet on it.
good luck though, hope you can!