Skiplagging: The travel hack hated by airlines is now the subject of a lawsuit

If anything, wouldn't they be saving on the fuel costs of not transporting you?

Alternatively, the airline may be able to have another paying passenger fill the empty seat.

> The airlines can get all worked up about it, but there's no way they can stop it.

They might be able to greatly reduce it. If they wanted to discourage people booking A->B->C and then leaving at B they could start randomly picking an A->B->C flight and not selling A->B tickets for that particular flight, so that everyone onboard has booked A->B->C.

Then after everyone has boarded announce that the flight has been upgraded for free to direct A->C.

> impose a penalty fee after so-many missed connections

Even that might be dicey in a lot of jurisdictions, both based on aviation tariffs, and consumer protection laws.

If I were to guess it’s the lost of potential revenue, that empty seat could very well mean another traveler from the middle stop to the final stop, which they could sell for more than the original layover traveler.

They could give a "partial refund" for "not missing" your connection or, in plain language, make people pay an amount up front any time they have to make a connection and keep it as forfeit if they skiplag. That's obvious enough the airlines would be doing it if this skiplag stuff really bothered them.

Asia has much less regulation than the EU or even the US. Interestingly, the service is kinda okay and very cheap because they care more about the reputation and repeat-customers. Given the prices airlines like AirAsia flies with, I’d say they beat the US/EU by a wide margin.

> had I been allowed to cancel (for "free") even if I didn't get my money back it'd have been a big win for the company which could double book their now free seat and still get the money.

don’t worry they 100% sold the seat if the flight was at capacity. flights are always overbooked, and if everyone shows up they offer money until someone takes the offer to get on a different flight

Here is more

> The plan was for the teen to get off the plane in Charlotte where he lives, his father told local television station Queen City News, but before he could board his flight, he was stopped by gate agents and taken to a room.

I find it interesting that no one finds this extremely disturbing. This a staggering abuse of laws to make use of state/federal officers (armed guys) for something very trivial; and the icing on the cake is that the target is a minor.

The idea is that the USA is the land of the free is eroding faster than the North Pole ice.

Seems reasonable to refuse service. Entirely and fully in their rights as it should be. This person was not going to fulfil their side of contract that is travel to end destination. So service was refused. And it wasn't under any protected class.

I think airlines actually face a lot of liability around the transport of unaccompanied minors--what if they lost the kid? The few times I traveled unaccompanied as a minor, the flight attendants were always checking in on me, knew my itinerary, etc. My parents had to come to the gate and the airlines would not release me to anyone else nor let me wander off.

From that perspective, they face huge downside if they fail to convey a minor to the contracted final destination and then the minor goes missing. A minor who announces the intention to wander away not according to plan sets off alarm bells in someone who has this perspective.

Also, if AA doesn't like it, can't they just demand to be unlisted like Southwest, for example?

I didn’t read the whole pdf, but it sounds like they’re saying Skiplagged pretends to be the the user and goes to aa.com on their behalf and purchases the tickets ? Personally I haven’t used the skiplagged website, but wondering why it would do that vs just outputting you an itinerary like “Here, book this itinerary with whichever booking agent you want”

Now I’m wondering if when they say “promises to deliver savings, but often charges consumers more than if they had booked a ticket directly with the airline”, they mean booking the skiplagged ticket via their website vs skiplagged, and not vs price of direct flight…

Btw you also can’t book anything with ita matrix, that’s only a search engine. After finding an itinerary you need to take the fare construction code and provide that to an iata accredited agency who can then input the booking into the GDS.

But yeah screw the airlines here. And the irony of them claiming skiplagged has “deceptive ticketing practices” They should figure out their pricing models if they’re unhappy people are exploiting their game.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.38...

Yes, I used that strategy in Germany a couple of years ago, but I think the Deutsche Bahn changed their fare structure so it stopped working there.

Buses too in Canada. The bus from Toronto to Ottawa would cost more than the bus from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal.

Had to do with in-province fares being tariffed and set in advance, while inter-provincial fares were free-market.

Technically illegal for the bus to drop you off in-province, but they can't really stop you.

Ha, that's not too far off how some places work now.

I remember a friend getting into a huge argument with a girl behind the counter at a fastfood joint. He wanted a burger and fries and no drink, but the girl said it's cheaper as a combo with the drink. He said he doesn't want the combo because he doesn't want the drink. She's saying but with it it's CHEAPER! Just take the drink! He's saying I don't want the stupid drink, if you give me the drink I'm just dumping it in the bin! She's getting annoyed and saying but it's CHEAPER with it, take the damn drink! He's getting frustrated and says fine give me the combo and then YOU keep the drink - she says they can't do that because then its not a combo! He's now yelling what the hell is the difference, just charge me for the combo and keep the drink, and she's yelling but then it's NOT THE COMBO, YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE DRINK!

We eventually had to calm them all down and I think someone else took the drink haha.

The airline probably sets pricing based on a model that predicts the maximum amount of profit based on supply/demand, popularity etc.

Similar reason I can get a flight from London to Rome for £20, yet Sydney to Queenstown is a minimum of $300.

That's when greed meets reality. Except for reading this through the prism of maximizing profit, it makes absolutely no sense.

They will pay extra landing fees, burn more fuel, fly further, and have one more cycle on their very costly engines to bring you from A to B, so by all metrics, it should be more expensive.

But hey, people are "willing" to pay more for the direct flight, so why not charge them as much as they can, while suing the skiplaggers for "costing" them money..

From the article. most people prefer to avoid stopovers so there is more demand for a direct flight from point A to point C, pushing the price up.

Since there is less demand to fly from point A to point C via point B, the price point is lower.

Something they know about the destination makes them expect you to be less price-sensitive, so they charge a higher price despite lower costs. A competitor should eat their lunch when they do it, but there don’t seem to be enough.

It's "explained" in the article. Trips from one large hub to another are in high demand, so the price is high. Trips from a large hub to a small place are in low demand, so the price is lower. The main defense is "the pricing model is complex."

But it's clear for all to see that it's nonsense. First, complexity is no defense for anything. Second, the resource utilization is strictly higher in the skiplag case: the demand on the first leg is the same, so demand can't be justification either.

If the price for a multi-leg trip can be lower, that must be because the earnings on the second part of the trip outweigh the loss on the first part. That would also mean the single leg passengers are subsidizing the remaining legs.

In the example given in the story, the kid was flying from JAX to NYC with a connection in CLT (one of the larger AA hubs). In that case, AA probably priced the flight to NYC lower in order to compete with some rate that United or Delta was offering. A "normal" flight to CLT might be a lot more expensive - but it's artificially marked up with a hefty profit. Now American Airlines is whining because they can't squeeze profit out of every passenger because people are doing this. They claim it's against their terms of service... but screw that noise.

I think it should be illegal for them to bar skiplagging. I hope lawsuit blows up in their face and the FTC and Consumer Protection step in to bar airlines from fighting it.

They add a big premium onto the price of a direct flight, regardless of where to.

Check prices for flights from Paris to Martinique and to Guadeloupe. Each will cost about $1000, with a layover on Guadeloupe or Martinique, respectively. Or, you can pay $1500 for a nonstop to either one.

That $500 buys you the avoidance of 3 hours of your life switching planes at airports.

The prices are set by the market (ie: the other players). If there is only one airline that does Charlotte direct for $500, then AA is going to price its flight at $490.

The cost of the flight is irrelevant.

A few reasons, that can make direct more expensive operationally & lower demand, respectively:

1) Longer voyages use less fuel as a multi-leg because aircraft don't have to load as much to make the full flight direct. See: "intermediate stop operations". Those 15h and 18h flights are really bad for fuel efficiency, and they can't carry as much cargo. That's a reason Asia<->USA cargo flights frequently stop in Anchorage Alaska. They're also more complex for staff (can only fly so many hours at a time, need to carry relief pilot(s) after X hours)

2) Sometimes transiting a particular country is difficult, so that routing would have lower demand. Sometimes I fly from Paris-USA-Toronto, and that incurs extra headaches (visas, ESTA, luggage restrictions (e.g. food)) that many avoid.

The issue is they would charge you significantly more for the direct flight to the stopover location.

It's a pricing model that works by charging for what people are willing to pay, not the costs incurred.