Skipping coupons on ticket with delays
Normally, if you buy a ticket which contains 4 legs, and you don't fly the 2nd leg, an airline will automatically cancel the reservation for legs 3 and 4
However, if a person flies leg 1, but it's delayed and causes you to be unable to catch the 2nd flight, what happens ? Is the passenger compelled to catch the flight the airline arranges as a substitute for leg 2 (however long the delay may be until a seat can be found) or can you make alternate arrangements at your own cost to reach the destination of leg 2 (i.e. forfeit the cost of leg 2), and still catch the flights for legs 3 and 4 ?
In my case, the specifics are that I'm thinking of flying from city XXX, via AMS to London, and then from London via AMS to XXX. Problem is that the connection at AMS is rather tight and I think KLM are being over-ambitious in the scheduling. And no, I don't want to fly 12 hours earlier or 12 hours later from XXX, or use another airline