# Ought skiplagging be permitted? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2023, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795 "2023-08-19T12:06:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/141 "2023-08-22T02:50:37Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > A retail version of this same phenominon can be found in the soft drink aisle at the local grocery. If you pick up a 20 oz coke at the front of the store, it will put you back $2.25, but in the soft drink section you can pick up a 2 liter bottle on sale for $1.25. Does in make sense from a value of goods perspective? No. But from a price point perspective it makes perfect sense, people are willing to spend more on a quick impulse purchase than they would on a grocery item. Still going up to the self check register and scanning and paying for a 2 liter bottle but walking out with a 20 oz is not kosher. Okay and what if you paid the $1.25 for the two liter bottle and only drank twenty ounces of it. And a store employee followed you out and said “If you only drank twenty ounces of soda, you skiplagged that two liter bottle. You should have paid $2.25 for the twenty ounce bottle. You owe us a dollar.” You’d be okay with that, right? After all, by buying the two liter bottle you entered into a contract with the store to drink two liters of soda and you should be penalized for not fulfilling the contract. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/142 "2023-08-22T03:26:41Z")
As long as we’re offering far-fetched analogies, how about this one: You’re a young teenager, and you ask your mom, “If I take the dirty dishes to the kicthen, will you drive me to the library after dinner so I can do some schoolwork?” She agrees. You’re riding toward the library, but as you reach the mall and are stopped at a red light, you jump out of the car and say “You can just let me out here, Mom!” “Oh no,” she says. “I agreed to drive you to the library, not to the mall. If I had known you wanted me to drive you to the mall, I would have required more than just carrying your dirty dishes to the kitchen.” But you’re already on your way into the mall. Why should she mind? You’re just not using the second half of the ride even though you paid for the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/143 "2023-08-22T04:06:20Z")
Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/144 "2023-08-22T05:23:09Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > > [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > > > Most likely because there is a competing airline offering a direct route which is faster. > > Actually, no. In my example that I posted yesterday (Wichita to Miami via Atlanta was cheaper than Wichita to Atlanta), there are no direct flights from Wichita to Miami. In the example given by @Cheesesteak a few posts up (NY to Peoria via Chicago), I’m seriously doubting that there are direct flights to Peoria from NY. > > So I will ask again: why is it cheaper for me to fly from Wichita to Miami with a stopover in Atlanta, than to fly the SAME FLIGHT from Wichita to Atlanta? I seem to recall reading somewhere that it’s to encourage people to use the smaller airport rather than driving to a major airport maybe 2 hours away to grab a cheaper flight. In 1984 we wanted to visit friends in Venezuela. Dad asked the price of our tickets Madison to Miami to Merida vs. O’Hare to Miami to Merida (thinking we could just grab the ALCO bus to O’Hare and back). It was cheaper to go Madison to Miami to Merida. Realistically odds are, if you have only carry on and only do it once, that they won’t catch you: they’ll assume you lost track of time at the bar or ate the wrong thing and are in the bathroom barfing, etc. But if 70% of the Madison to Denver to Tucson flight consistently doesn’t make the plane in Denver, they’re gonna cancel that flight. And as a last thought: sometimes life isn’t fair. Cracking down on skiplagging might just qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/145 "2023-08-22T07:35:45Z")
The old [“sack of ten”](https://youtu.be/HCtEnt82POY) trick! (I wonder how White Castle would react if people started doing this in real life…) ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/146 "2023-08-22T09:26:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You should conduct business transactions as business transactions Then follow the terms of the contract which specifically disallow skiplagging. That’s more business like than purchasing a ticket to a fictional destination you have no intention of going to, violating the terms of the contract you agreed to follow, all to save a few bucks on your trip. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/147 "2023-08-22T13:16:07Z")
I wonder how many passengers have read the contract of carriage? Or how frequently airlines enforce violations of which they are aware? I, for one, welcome the day an airline employee actually places an oversized “carryon” in that little metal frame and insists that it be checked! (Presuming the CoC says anything about carryons!) Yeah, it is a contract. But in practice, it is a list of technicalities the airlines can selectively enforce when they consider it to be to their advantage. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/148 "2023-08-22T13:24:32Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > purchasing a ticket to a fictional destination you have no intention of going to Damn. There goes my plan to buy a ticket from Chicago to Narnia and get off at Denver. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/149 "2023-08-22T13:28:18Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > But in practice, it is a list of technicalities the airlines can selectively enforce when they consider it to be to their advantage. …to their _financial_ advantage. I am sure there’s a bunch of garbly-gook in there about passenger safety and other legal-ease that protects the airline from lawsuits, that are rarely encountered unless there is a very specific problem. But skiplagging doesn’t pose any safety or legal risk to the airline - it’s purely financial. They want to be able to continue charging more, artificially more, for something that really does not cost them more. They use this CoC as a tool to keep ripping-off their customers. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/150 "2023-08-22T13:32:04Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I, for one, welcome the day an airline employee actually places an oversized “carryon” in that little metal frame and insists that it be checked! (Presuming the CoC says anything about carryons!) I welcome the day an airline does and a passenger’s “defense” is “But it only weighs sixty pounds and I weigh only 150 pounds. That’s less combined than many of the passengers by themselves. It’s even less by volume than many of the passengers. You’re telling me that I have to check this, even though others passengers are allowed to walk on with an equal or greater volume and weight than my bag and I combined? How does that make sense? I pay for space and weight, and you’re telling me part of my space and weight is going to have to go with the checked baggage, while that heavyset gentleman over there gets to being his entire girth into the main cabin like some kind of royalty???” > [@snowthx](#): > > They want to be able to continue charging more, artificially more, for something that really does not cost them more. They use this CoC as a tool to keep ripping-off their customers. That’s not necessarily true, though. It is possible that certain routes are only possible if both of these are true: (1) the majority of passengers pay full fare for a single leg flight and (2) a minority of passengers pay discounted fare for a two-legged flight. That if the majority of passengers all paid the discounted fare, the flight would be unprofitable, that if no passengers paid the discounted fare, or if the discounted fare was eliminated and everyone paid the same per leg no one in their right mind would fly the two-leg route at all, and the entire route would become unprofitable. See @Buck_Godot’s excellent example upthread. ETA: Consider also a hypothetical in which a flight has both fixed and variable costs (not really a hypothetical), and that is possible, for example, that only the single leg fares could possibly recoup the fixed costs (that’s getting into the hypothetical territory) while, once they have done so, there is still some seating left at the optimal fixed cost price point, which allows additional seats to be filled by people paying discounted two-leg fares that recover their added variable costs (such as the cost of fuel) only. And that’s not even considering the complex interactions between routes where it might actually make perfect sense to fly a plane with crew only and no passengers just to get to a destination, even at a loss for that individual flight, but it sure would be nice to recoup some of that loss if possible. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/151 "2023-08-22T13:37:00Z")
I’m sure somewhere in the CoC there is language entitling me to place my rule compliant carryon in the overhead bin above my seat! 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/152 "2023-08-22T13:53:43Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > They want to be able to continue charging more, artificially more, for something that really does not cost them more. Welcome to the world of pricing things to the public. When my job title was “Pricer” the goal was to set the highest price your customers would be willing to pay for your service. The cost of providing service was part of the analysis, but if customers valued something highly you priced it high, and if they valued it low, you priced it low. If you had a strong market position, you priced high, if you had lots of competition, you priced low. You wind up with some services that are very profitable and some that are less profitable, but that doesn’t mean less profitable is a place you’re willing to go for all of your services. Low profit services fill a niche, they supplement the income from your more profitable lines, the day they start cannibalizing those other services is the day you stop offering them. Airlines have many customers who value the direct major airport flights highly enough to pay full price, they will not ever willingly turn those into discount flights. It’s the price sensitive customers from small airports who are going to have their prices change, upward. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/153 "2023-08-22T14:10:20Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Welcome to the world of pricing things to the public. When my job title was “Pricer” the goal was to set the highest price your customers would be willing to pay for your service. Funny how it’s good capitalism when a corporation looks out for its own financial advantage. But it’s wrong when a customer does it. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/154 "2023-08-22T14:14:54Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > They want to be able to continue charging more, artificially more, for something that really does not cost them more. What does “artificially more” mean? If you’re saying that all comsumer prices should be directly proportional to the company’s costs, that’s naive and unrealistic (and not necessarily to anyone’s advantage). ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/155 "2023-08-22T14:40:14Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But it’s wrong when a customer does it. It’s wrong when the customer agrees to terms with the deliberate intention to violate those terms. It’s wrong when the end game is screwing over other customers with higher priced or less available services. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/156 "2023-08-22T15:34:44Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > It’s wrong when the customer agrees to terms with the deliberate intention to violate those terms. You apparently aren’t aware that I have a customer contract that specifically allows me to skiplag. And the airline accepted this contract when they sold me a ticket. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/157 "2023-08-22T15:36:30Z")
It’s also wrong when the power imbalance between the two parties is so great that one party can take advantage of the other, and chooses to do so. That’s the case with airlines and their customers. All that idealized capitalism only works in a world of perfect information and comparable power, axioms that are routinely broken in the real world. The airlines might have the legal right to screw over customers who chose to exit early, but they surely can’t claim the mortal Gogh ground in doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/158 "2023-08-22T15:37:30Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > > > It’s wrong when the customer agrees to terms with the deliberate intention to violate those terms. > > You apparently aren’t aware that I have a customer contract that specifically allows me to skiplag. And the airline accepted this contract when they sold me a ticket. I’m sure you realize that it doesn’t work like that. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/159 "2023-08-22T15:41:22Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m sure you realize that it doesn’t work like that. Then why do people in these threads keep invoking these contracts? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2023, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795/160 "2023-08-22T15:43:36Z")
Because you _do_ agree to the contract of carriage when you buy a ticket. They never agreed to your fictional contract. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ought-skiplagging-be-permitted/988795.md?page=9)