Teenager ‘taken to security room and interrogated’ for throwaway ticketing
viewfromthewing.com
viewfromthewing.com
That’s all because when he checked in at the ticket counter, the agent saw his North Carolina drivers license, and suspect that the reservation which included a flight from Charlotte to New York was really a throwaway or ‘hidden city’ ticket. In other words, the boy was traveling to Charlotte but had booked a point beyond – in this case, New York, because it was cheaper. And they had no intention of flying all of the segments they’d booked.”
Interrogated and forced to buy another ticket because he was suspected of using Skiplagged(he was, but there’s no way the agent knew).
Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power.
Even with a police officer involved.
There are laws about private citizens detaining you (kidnapping laws).
There are laws on how long a police officer can detain you. https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/14-deten...
Maybe my memory is fuzzy here.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/support/conditions-...
In this case:
> Reservations made to exploit or circumvent fare and ticket rules are prohibited.
> Purchasing a ticket without intending to fly all flights to gain lower fares (hidden city ticketing)
It's not a court of law, they don't have to do proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
> An airline can refuse to transport a passenger for the reasons listed in its contract of carriage, a legal agreement between the passenger and airline, so long as the refusal is not discriminatory...
Thanks for citing some links, I misunderstood a few things!
I can understand that they can "citizen arrest" you until the police comes but that would be it.
In France they would do your if they have reasonable suspicion, but only until the police arrives. If you do not want to talk to them you just wait (and if you did not do anything you grab the popcorn to see how this is going to end).
I told my children that whatever happens, they just insist on having the police called. They had to use this one and the security company immediately let them go.
In general I can't think of a way private interrogations are legal in the US, though the airline will likely claim that the kid was "always free to leave" and get away with this.
I doubt the person cared.
This is probably some quota they have to hit - enforced by the company - not the person power tripping.
You've never met a peon on a power trip? Have you never interacted with American police?
They are, of course, not going to go out of your way to remind you of that right when they say "please come with us".
If a non-law officer says “come with me”, you don’t have to, but people do it anyway.
But the whole thing is just coercion. Sounds more like something the mafia would do than an airline. But then again, this is America so maybe the mafia is how airlines got started.
It doesn't matter if he used skiplagged or not.. using skiplagged to book tickets is not against AA policy.
He was suspected of planning on not using his second leg ticket.
That is to say, the airline punished him before he did anything wrong, which is the part we should be discussing.
I find it staggering a corporation has the ability to detain and interrogate a citizen who bought a product from them and dared to use it. What on earth is going on here.
Imagine if you were at the mall and Apple Store employees tried to drag you into a back room because you bought a laptop from them that they suspect you'll use to try and decrypt things they don't want you to.
They can't prevent you from leaving, but they can apply consequences if you do.
I think context matters a lot more here than people think. They had no evidence he intended to get off at Charlotte. This was classic coersion and extortion. This was not a contract negotiation, or even a contract dispute. Both parties were wilfully entered into a contract, that was being upheld, with no proof it wasn't going to be, until after the coercion.
That seems to have been the case here too.
The legal system's interpretation of extortion/coercion is also stricter than you want it to be.
I’m almost certain he was not detained in a legal sense. It was probably more of a strong suggestion that he should go with them to the security office. Someone with more experience probably could have seen through it and either politely declined to go with them, or if they insist go with them and tell them that he of course intends to travel to New York.
I'm now also staggered that we've reached a point where people think it's OK for a corporation to make "strong suggestions" for people to go into back rooms and be grilled about products they've bought, and they use "technicalities" and careful wording to say "oh, it's not that bad".
It's horrific the power corporations have over us.
Here in Australia at least, we have signs stating that "All bags must be presented for inspection" when leaving stores. These have no legal basis and customers are free to refuse, which I did in the past, I guess I have to start doing it again.
Of course it comes with some somewhat heated discussions at times when you say no, their desired effect of course.
We really do need to fight back against such egregious overreach such as this instance, I guess that means fighting on all fronts.
I did not say it is OK. I said that is what likely happened.
Legally it is a word of difference if they put their hands on you and force you into a room vs if they say "We need to ask a few more questions, follow me this way." in a no-nonsense manner. The second works against a teenager some of the time.
The first is illegal (depending on circumstances) It is very hard to write laws which prevent the second one.
> It's horrific the power corporations have over us.
It is. And not just in this case.
I did the round trip once - well 3/4 trip anyway - back when I was a poor student. I woke up really early to board a bus for a 3 hour drive to a faraway city, where I then boarded a plane that less than an hour later had me back in my originating city (the airline's main "hub.") There I changed flights and continued on to my destination. On the return segment days later, however, I left at the midpoint and went home. This cost several hundred dollars less than the more direct alternative.
Airlines tend to overcharge at their hub cities because they face little competition.
I don't see this as a moral quandary either way, it's more like counting cards at Blackjack: the casinos don't want you to do it but it's not illegal, so if you can do it successfully, great. But if you get caught you have to pay the price.
The folks that get caught doing this tend to get caught only after doing it repeatedly.
Passengers are penalized for using their tickets too.
Well, the US seemingly can't.
I always think that every single USA-based transit administrator, or even train conductor, should be forced to do an internship in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong-kong, shanghai beijing etc...
You want to know what VALUE YOU SHOULD BE _PROVIDING_ then go find a rail/transit system that fn works, is clean, is on time, isnt a crippling financial bullshit on the people... go do some transits in these countries to see what a shameful position USA is in this regard. And you - specifically and personally who work for these transit orgs in the US and are too stupid to even see the simple truth of how Fd the US is in this regard.
I wouldn't be surprised if some major airlines would have a shared banned passenger database. Something like a no-fly list but for people who broke various fine-print airline rules. He might find himself not being able to fly on any airline for 3 years.
Engineer in me twitched.
You can fly any prefix of flights, and drop any suffix. :)
Here's United Express for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Express_passenger_...
Lufthansa busted for "losing" checked bags when the checked bags had airtags - the customer told Lufthansa exactly where to look. Lufthansa banned airtags and then reversed course: https://www.macworld.com/article/1347964/lufthansa-airtags-b...
Flying internationally, KLM has never done me wrong (I suspect the average Dutch man being 6ft tall helps seat sizing) and I recently had a rather pleasant flight on Turkish Airways.
United has fined repeat skiplaggers. Lufthansa sued some.
While their Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html) covers this in Rules 6J and 6K, the closest that they have any means of financial redress is 6.K.5:
> Assess the Passenger any amounts owed to UA, including but not limited to for seat blocking, for the actual value of the service or ancillary product, and for the full value of a Ticket, which shall be the difference between the lowest fare applicable to the Passenger’s actual itinerary and the fare actually paid, including after the transportation or service have been provided.
Which at most would entitle them to try to charge him for the difference for the direct flight, but even then (IANAL) seems like there's substantial room for argument, if you tried to push back.
Yes, that was the fine.
https://nomascoach.boardingarea.com/travel/united-airlines-t...
> Such conduct constitutes fraud and a violation of Rule 6 of United’s Contract of Carriage. Accordingly, United demands that you cease and desist these unauthorized practices immediately and that you reimburse United in the amount of $3,236.76 which represents the difference between the cost of the tickets that you purchased and the cost of the travel taken, within 10 business day of receipt of this letter.
I don't know if they managed to collect on it.
There should be rules that make it illegal to force contracts where they can charge more for less.
If I want to take the risk of reroutes, or want to cancel midroute in transit, that should me my right. Anything beyond that is ridiculous.
"when one individual is traveling from Millbrae station, a suburb south of San Francisco, to Embarcadero station which is downtown San Francisco, and at the same time a second individual is traveling from Glen Park station, a residential area in San Francisco,to Berkeley station. The two tickets cost (according to 2014 fare chart) $4.50 and $4.20 respectively. But if during the segment between Glen Park station and Embarcadero station the two travelers agree to exchange their tickets the cost becomes $5.10 and $1.85. So from a total cost of $8.70 a simple ticket swap saves $1.75 or 20% "
Someday I might write about the amount of light and fury generated by the paragraph above.
Note from the article:
> The boy’s father said he booked the ticket using Skiplagged, which helps find such throwaway options, but he didn’t know that airlines frowned on this. The dad always books with Skiplagged, and has for years, but the child had never even traveled alone before. The boy was on his own and confessed.
The family (and account used to purchase the tickets) was likely red flagged. This is harder to catch if you don't check in with a person (using a kiosk or app), but it is easy to imagine that there's a note on the account in the checkin screen for the employee to see... which an unaccompanied minor would need to use.
If any luggage was asked to only be checked through Charlotte, then that raises additional red flags.
The airline likely needs to do some due diligence. The individual is an unaccompanied minor flying. Imagine what they airline would need to do if he didn't get on the connecting flight to New York.
That said - it would likely have been caught in Charlotte as the unaccompanied minor is escorted to the next flight and ended up much the same way.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unacc...
• Unaccompanied minor service optional, service fee still applies
• Gate escort and guardian contact requiredIf you're skiplagging, no checked bags. Carry-on/backpack only. The airlines won't let you do that.
The US does not have the concept of international transit lounges like other countries do, where you can get off plane 1 and sit in a room that is not technically inside the country (so you don't clear customs or immigration), then just get on plane 2 and go to another country.
I suspect there would be cases where it's cheaper to book a connecting flight through the US to some other country (or US city) and just get off at your first stop.
I've... stretched the definition of "one carry on and one camera bag" in the past (my camera bag is about https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1547750-REG/lowepro_l... and then I've got a small hiking backpack with laptop pouch for my carry on bag). If it wasn't a camera bag (or my single carry on wasn't as compressible) I would likely have had to check one in at the gate... as it was I've always been able to put the camera bag under the seat in front of me and the carry in in the space between/around the harder shelled monstrosities that people try to stuff into the overhead.
If I had two carry on bags rather than a carry on and camera bag ("We may allow up to two carry on bags, space permitting in the plane") or one didn't fit in the bracket at the counter without smooshing I would would have had to check one in.
(Aside: I have never skiplagged - I just don't trust camera bags or laptops to baggage handlers and if packing light results in no checked luggage, all the better)
If the youth didn't know the nuances of how to pack for such a situation there are a number of things that would be gotchas that would indicate to the employee at the counter that this would be skiplagging... along with the existing red flags of the drivers license, and the family history of doing it.
---
It would have been interesting if they (the airline) were to rebook someone they suspect of skiplagging onto a partner airline that has a different connecting stop. "This flight is full, so we're booking you on Delta with a connection in Atlanta. Fortunately, it will get into New York City an hour earlier, we will be contacting your guardian there about the earlier arrival."
I’ve been in situations where when I try to check in via app or kiosk it says to see an agent (passport details needed to be updated, seat change, etc.). I imagine they could do something similar here pretty easily.
https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unacc...
The skiplagging was going to fall apart real quickly, it's just a matter if it happens at check in, or when trying to leave at the connecting flight when the connecting flight escort says "this way" and the minor says "but my parents are at the passenger pickup area."
Airlines take their custodianship of unaccompanied minors quite seriously.
I've seen TSA and airline workers in various airports get their sadistic pleasure out of bullying people. I'll always remember watching helplessly as they forced my elderly parents to the side, for the "extra" security check, all while making fun of them not speaking English well, and laughing at their visible distress and confusion. It's the little bright stop in their day to fight the monotony, low pay and boredom.
The US continues to prove corporations (and people) cannot be trusted. Governments and regulations are there to protect people.
This is perversion of morality at its peak. Just because the airline prices the direct flights higher than an indirect flight through a connection doesn't mean you're stealing. To suggest that the airline's right to profit (from a practice of questionable ethics) outweighs my right as a consumer to leave the airport and cancel the rest of my trip is outrageous. To call this "stealing" as though you're taking the property of the airline. Nothing is "stolen" here. If I go to a restaurant and pay for a three course meal, but decide I'm full after two courses, the restaurant can't sue me for not eating a third plate.
The kid in this article wasn't even in violation of a contract: just because he intended to leave the airport doesn't mean he'd violated a contract yet. I can't even imagine how the airline would take action against a passenger for this. Talk about thoughtcrime.
Your second point is the more important one, and to my mind, the reason they call a lawyer. The kid hadn't done anything yet. The appropriate response from the gate agent should have been to remind the kid that not travelling to the booked destination was a violation of the terms of carriage and might result in additional fees.
It should not be.
Any reasonable society would make such contracts/terms illegal and unenforcable.
Citizens need to be given primacy over corporations.
And the passenger is identified as a "teenager". Which could be of age 18+ or 17-. If younger than 18, they can't legally enter a contract anyway.
But they've learned a valuable lesson in the adversarial relation between most corporations and the "consumer". The agreement has little to do with the basics of paying for something and still not using it. Like many TOS and EULAs.
Totally agree otherwise.
> How do you prove that?
Possibly if one party explicitly says that they are not going to uphold their end of the contract.
That's how they build up to being bailed out by "we the idiot herd" every dacade or so...
Just another reason for well audited, transparent, public ownership...
Then again, that's exactly how regional distribution of media works and the reason why media are still licensed per country. It's the same insane logic, just hidden behind contract and licensing law.
Oh, unless you're a company of course, then it's just arbitrage.
They wanted to question him, probably in a private area. He wasn’t getting on any of their flights w/o answering so he went along with it.
That’s literally detaining him, so I am not sure what you’re objecting to here.
If you have a flight to catch, of course, the calculus changes but once that becomes a lost cause, all bets are off.
If I miss my flight I'm more motivated to catch the next one, not test my available civil liberties in front of poorly-paid ex-military. Best case you end up detained (in the real sense) for a long time and potentially acquitted in court, months later and having incurred plenty of mental trauma. Worst case you just go to jail. Sounds like a lose-lose
Ha. Ha. Suddenly everyone's an expert in what constitutes detention. There's actually a big difference between "literally not detaining" someone and not detaining someone.
I think the detention naysayers in this thread have failed to consider that the people who practice this type of behavior are experts. Frequently the whole business of these interrogators is to make sure that someone is "not literally" detained, but that they are in fact detained, in the sense that they do not feel free to leave. In this way, the interrogator has not committed a crime or malfeasance by falsely detaining a person, but they isolate them and make them feel as though they need to answer questions.
The worst part is that there is almost no clear coaching for how a person is supposed to get through this type of situation. With the police, we can give clear advice: (1) ask "am I being detained or am I free to leave?" (2) Refuse to engage in conversation; (3) Ask for a lawyer. But these aren't police. They will tell you that you are not being detained. They have a few hundred dollars of your money and maybe a bunch of your clothes, and they just need you to answer a few questions before you get on the plane.
What are you going to say? "I refuse to answer questions without a lawyer"? "I refuse to remain in this tiny office answering questions"? Ok. Great. You're banned, and maybe turned over to TSA for a real custodial interrogation for acting so suspiciously at an airport.
Anyway, all this to say that your word games with "literally" this and that are not clever because this is actually much worse than a real custodial interrogation because the rights and obligations are much less clear and that lack of clarity accrues to the corporation's advantage.
In this case I would just declare that I'm leaving and if any resistance, demand the real cops be called or call them yourself. Same if they refuse to return your cash and/or luggage.
And the person in question is a teenager.
In a more well-adjusted society this would not be considered legal and people wouldn't be defending it.
Not true. Before you buy someone a skiplegged ticket you explain to them how this works. Why their ticket will say a different destination from where they want to go and why the airlines want to discourage the practice. Explain what things can go wrong (no checked-in luggage, things can go wrong with diversions).
If someone can’t understand the concept, or it confuses them, or they are too naive or too honest to play this “deception” or too busy to receive this information then just don’t and buy a regular ticket.
> What are you going to say?
Simple. They might ask you where you are traveling to. Answer “new york”. If they ask “but where are you really traveling?” answer “new york man, how many times you want to ask the same question?” if they ask you anything about New York answer whatever you want as long as the answer implies you are planing to go there.
On the other hand, I think a lot of the difficulty in situations like this comes from not knowing that this is about the "skiplag" issue (or not knowing if it's only about that issue). I think there's also a likely scenario where the airline starts investigating you for one thing and just sort of throws the book of accusations at you when they don't like how the skiplag interrogation is going.
My first comment was more about that: the private actor interrogating people without clear rules or limits.
That’s detainment by coercion at least.
> A teen traveling solo for the first time from Gainesville, Florida to Charlotte was taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father.
What is your definition of "detained"?
They probably intimidated him into coming with them and he agreed / complied.
> according to the boy’s father
Who wasn’t present.
The airline may have asked nicely and the son complied and never tried or asked to leave. That’s not being detained. We will probably only know the details if this goes to court and it comes out or if video of the interaction is released.
If I am going about my business, but you request that I stop what I'm doing to follow you to have a chat, you are detaining me. period. you pussyfooting around this like it's not is just disingenuous at best
Was this the government police doing this? Or a private company?
> If I am going about my business, but you request that I stop what I'm doing to follow you to have a chat, you are detaining me. period. you pussyfooting around this like it's not is just disingenuous at best
So all of those “on-the-street” YouTubers asking questions are detaining people? Even if those people don’t stop?
maybe you'd prefer the word accosted?
www.law.cornell.edu/wex/detain
> In criminal law, to detain an individual is to hold them in custody
> Custody is the state of physically holding or controlling a person
If a person positions to block my way (especially in an official capacity), this is detainment, brief as it may be and as hard as it may be to prove in a trial.
Its detaining someone in either case, though the difference you point to makes a difference in whether it is illegal (or, at least, in which law controls whether it is.)
As a civilian, I can ask a lost child what their guardian was wearing to help locate them without breaking laws surrounding interrogation. Similarly, I can ask a child if they intend to fly to New York or if they intend to get off in North Carolina.
The other way to fix it would be to charge every leg at direct flight prices and then offer a rebate for completing your full itinerary.
It sounds like abuse of market power, rather than an honest supply-demand with an eye on their costs, thing. They try to extort more for the shorter trip due to artificial scarcity.
It’s way more expensive to fly into smaller regional hubs like Charlotte because the supply of airlines that want to maintain a presence there is smaller than a national hub like New York City.
That’s how you get these upstart airlines that take over a corner of the US when the prices get too high. Then the big airlines drop their prices to compete because the supply went up.
There are effectively four major airlines. That’s just not nearly enough to avoid anti-competitive bullshit like this.
https://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/50066526/airline-hub-gu...
And Charlotte in particular:
https://www.wfae.org/local-news/2020-01-14/faq-city-why-do-f...
> So, you're probably wondering, why does American control most of the flights here? It's because Charlotte Douglas International Airport is an American hub. The airline has 90% percent of the nearly 700 daily flights here. That lets it set whatever price it wants, says Ted Reed of Charlotte, who covers airlines for Forbes.
> The answer is pretty simple: We're basically a one-airline town. There's little competition for American Airlines, says Scott Mayerowitz , the executive news director thepointsguy.com, a website that tracks the cost of flying.
> "It is pure supply and demand."
> "Well, I don't want to minimize the fact that this is a monopoly carrier … basically a monopoly company providing service," says Reed. "So of course, they're going to charge more. But a lot of people think the the trade-off is worth it and you know, and that's why you see the companies move here, a lot of companies move here because of the service."
> "People always say to me: Fares are too high and the airlines are horrible. But yet the parking lot at the airport is always full."
Wether 90% (or X%) market share qualifies as a monopoly is an age-old debate.
It really isn’t much of a debate
I've never heard of a normal pay-per-item one doing it.
I realize America doesn't work this way but it's something I think a lot of people would agree with
One day our friend was ill but three of us weren't going to miss the only sunny day of British summer so we went without him.
The ticket agent on the train was quite insistent that we were breaking the rules...and I guess in some sense we were, as the tickets did say four people had to travel together. We ended up with a "One time courtesy exception" so we could continue our journey.
National Rail later revised the program to a 33% discount for groups of 3 or more.