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> This website is simply _enabling_ people who intend to > violate this (potential) term of their airline ticket > agreement.

Which might, in some jurisdictions, open the website operators to claims of tortious interference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference) if they can prove that the site operator knew about the contractual term and incited people to breach it.

Hopefully a term requiring someone to take a flight is unenforceable (if such a term even exists) - so that might give them a defence even if such a term exists.

> if they can prove that the site operator knew about the contractual term and incited people to breach it.

Notably, the contract didn't yet exist at the time of involvement of the site operator.

At the point of ticket purchase / contractual agreement, the site operator is not involved, and in fact the operator has no knowledge of whether a contract was entered at all.

I think most people have, at some point, chosen between available flights based on layover city. I know I have. So there's a distinct utility offered, separate from any missed connections.

It's very hard for me to imagine a contract that includes "once you get on the plane, you must not miss your connecting flight".

Heck, I wish I could get the airlines to say "once you're on the plane, we will make sure your connecting flight doesn't leave without you", but of course that's impractical.

This is just silly.

> It's very hard for me to imagine a contract that includes "once you get on the plane, you must not miss your connecting flight".

Except that it basically says "Thou shalt not buy a ticket with the express intent of missing the connection".

http://www.united.com/web/format/pdf/Contract_of_Carriage.pd... (pg. 11)

Very interesting. Mark that as one point for my lack of imagination.

It might be tough to establish that the consumer entered into that contract knowledgeably, but there are a lot of more important terms in that same document -- so the airlines might have some powerful supporters with a vested interest in the validity of those contracts.

Still, tortious interference presumes an existing contract, from my expert legal reading of Wikipedia. If a customer enters the contract with a preexisting intention to breach, I am not sure you can accuse the site operator of interference before the fact.

>it would be limited to your individual contractual obligations as the owner of an airline ticke

Interfering with a contractual relationship is a tort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference

Interesting. I was under (perhaps mistakenly) the impression that buying a ticket to A-B-C and stopping at B, would result in being charged for the A-B route instead.

Regardless, I always check my baggage so A-B-C type tickets would not work for me.

What are they going to do? Ask you for money as you exit the plane in B?

Uh, how about charge the credit card you purchased the ticket with?

To be fair, I'm sure the airlines and your fellow travelers would also prefer for you to not waste a seat.

I know I would be pissed if I needed to take a flight but it was fully booked, and then found out that a dozen people already planned to not show up.

I see this trick as not very respectful to other people.

Is there anything stopping a standby passenger from being given a seat on the second leg?

Regulations, probably, but I also don't think you are allowed to randomly walk around the airport looking for empty seats if you don't have a ticket, and if I have a ticket I'm just going to my gate, since if I am at the airport it means my flight is about to leave anyway.

Nope. Each leg can be oversold, hence their complain is only about the lost money. And control.

No, but standby seating is not really something people pursue anymore in this era of cutthroat pricing and overbooking. And then you can only give that seat away at the very last minute, which pretty much guarantees that you will be delaying that plane, with much higher financial consequences for the airline. I think overbooking is a better solution for the airlines.

Why? They paid their price for the ticket.

Please re-read my last sentence.

My question is about your last sentence. Why is it "not very respectful to other people"?

Re-read the previous sentences then?

Because you may prevent me from taking that seat without actually needing it. Sure you can but it's not nice to me.

They paid for the seat. It's not disrespectful to buy something you don't need when the supply isn't limited. And the supply of plane seats isn't limited; the more people buying seats, the more seats there are for you to purchase, on average.

Looking at a single possible outcome and using it to complain about the entire practice is foolish.

On average, you and I eat half a chicken.

I'm not the one considering one single outcome, if anything I feel like I'm the only one in these comments considering a different possible side effect of the trick.

>On average, you and I eat half a chicken.

I have no idea what you're trying to say. There are millions of people involved. Averages make sense to use.

For example maybe 450k are unable to get a ticket because a plane filled up with non-riders, and 550k are able to get a ticket when they couldn't before because additional capacity was allocated to the route. Is it 'disrespectful'? Hell no, in my view. It's just shuffling what are fundamentally random numbers. These people are buying tickets too late to be assured seats. Some will get them, some won't, and buying your own is not a negative unless you do something like coordinate to buy out an entire route.

Edit:

>I'm not the one considering one single outcome

Yes you are. You are only considering the possible downsides of a purchase. I could use a similar argument to say that nobody should ever buy anything non-critical because stock might run out and screw over the person behind them.

And then the economy collapses.

No. I don't need to discuss the other effects because everyone else is discussing those. I'm adding another point of view to the conversation, it doesn't mean I don't understand the other side.

>No. I don't need to discuss the other effects because everyone else is discussing those, I'm adding another point of view to the conversation, it doesn't mean I don't understand the other side.

No, 'everyone else' is not discussing the effects I'm talking about.

'everyone else' is focusing on about the person buying the split ticket.

You are focusing on the other passengers on the plane, which is a noble goal.

But you're only looking at half the picture of those other passengers.

'everyone else' is looking at 50% of the picture, you are bringing 25%, I'm showing the last 25% and how (in my opinion) it counters your argument.

The person buying the split ticket has an effect on the other passengers, but their main effect is changing which potential other passengers are able to buy tickets. Since this is a random and chaotic process subject to the butterfly effect, I declare that it is impossible to not affect it, and therefore affecting it is not disrespectful. It can only be disrespectful if you reduce the total number of seats fulfilled by other passengers. Because supply chases demand, buying extra seats should not have this effect. Therefore there is no disrespect.

Fair. We are looking at different scales.

I've heard and experienced many times that most flights are overbooked by default to compensate passengers that are not showing up. On the other hand this often results in changed seats or even rebookings to other classes (I got an upgrade to Business class "for free") or even other flights.