I could be wrong, but I do not believe that the FAA allows passengers on the plane when refueling. So what happens then?
I don’t think that’s true. I was on a flight where there was an issue with the fuel gauge (whatever the equivalent is on a plane). They had to visually check fuel levels (some kind of dispstick) and discovered they were short what they needed. We did not deplane while that was taken care of.
As to the other issue of changing planes mid flight, whenever that happened to me, I had a separate page in my ticket for the second leg. If my flight didn’t require a plane change, I had one ticket page. I know everything is electronic now, but the e-version would require a new QR code to board the second aircraft.
Quite honestly I don’t know the law regarding the extent of a captain’s authority; Could he disallow someone to leave a plane if their ticket didn’t indicate they were at their final destination.
I can guaranty that would be false imprisonment.
So a captain can kick a person off a plane against their will , but cannot keep one from leaving?
If you try this with a woman and your apartment, let’s just say that kicking her out will go over a lot better than not allowing her to leave.
Of course it does. You now would have 2 boarding passes on your phone (or paper copies). And if you deplaned after the first flight but didn’t want to board the second, the airline couldn’t force you to do so.
And this is EXACTLY what this thread is about.
Refueling with passengers aboard is 100% normal. At least for 737/A320-sized airplanes it’s rare the fueling is even started until about the first third of the plane is boarded. Fueling is meant to be completed somewhere in the latter stages of boarding.
There is a requirement to leave the aircraft boarding door open and the jetbridge (or stairs / ramp) attached if fueling with passengers aboard. That facilitates a rapid de-planing if a fueling emergency was to arise. Which IMO is mostly a holdover from the days of gasoline-powered airliners. Spilling some jet fuel happens often enough & isn’t really much of a hazard. Spilling an equivalent amount of gasoline is a much larger risk factor. And with the older methods of fueling piston airliners, was far more common.
Once in awhile this requirement leads to a flail when fueling is delayed for some reason and they’re still fiddling out there when boarding completes and the gate agent is in an all-fired rush to slam the airplane door & leave. If there’s not good coordination between cockpit, cabin, and agent, or if the cockpit omits to think of the fueling still in progress that can create an “oops” which then leads to tiresome paperwork. Again. Sigh.
Hotels often offer discounted rates for extended stays, say if you reserve a room for 5+ nights. Should I be able to get away with reserving an extended stay for a discounted rate, then check out after only 1-2 nights, despite having expressly agreed to the reduced rate for a 5+ night stay when I contracted to reserve the room? Of course not; that would be breach of contract and I’m on the hook for damages. In this case, the hotel presumably would/could bill me for the non-discounted rate. Skiplagging is conceptually similar. The airlines and hotels offer the smaller per-flight/night margin in exchange for greater volume.
Skiplagging is also a little like demanding that a supermarket sell you a single item for half price when they’re offering “buy one, get one free.”
No, I don’t think it is analogous. What skiplaggers are taking advantage of is not a volume discount. If I want to fly from City A to City B, and the airline makes me change planes in City C, it’s not like I’m getting two flights for the price of one.
That focuses on whether it’s a volume discount for the consumer, which is neither my point nor material to the business decision made by the vendor (airline, hotel, etc.). Rather, the vendor has offered to reduce its own margin for volume. That is, for airlines, it puts butts in seats on flights to less travelled airports and for hotels, fills rooms on nights that might otherwise be unoccupied.
Similarly, much like the risk of skiplagging causing airlines to no longer discount flights to lower demand destinations, booking hotel rooms at extended stay rates and checking out early could lead to hotels no longer offering discounted extended stay rates.
I don’t think it is. It’s extremely uncommon for a merchant to offer 2 items for less than the cost of a single item. That’s what’s happening with airline pricing.
"Sale on peanut butter and jelly. 1 jar of peanut butter, $4. One jar of jelly, $3.50. Buy both and we’ll only charge you $3. But… If you throw away the jelly, you can never shop here again.
That’s the analogy, and that’s why it feels so weird that airlines sell flights that way.
The distinction strikes me as a difference of degree rather than concept, but I take your point. And I certainly agree that airline pricing is often counter intuitive.
“You aren’t allowed to throw away the jelly” is a difference in concept.
For that matter, if you find a deal where you could stay in s hotel for a week for less than the cost of the weekend stay you actually wanted (and I’ve never seen such a deal, but maybe they happen) no one polices your use of the room and charges you more if you don’t actually sleep there the extra nights. Or denies you privilege of renting rooms in the future.
Where we disagree is here:
When an airline sells a customer a trip from A to C, it’s a single service/contract, regardless if there’s a stop in B and a flight change involved. Indeed, changes to intermediate stops occur with reasonable frequency. Skiplaggers may (want to) believe that they’ve booked a trip from A to B with an option to continue to C, but that’s not the case. Weather conditions or other circumstances could send them to D, E, or F instead of B, en route to C. Or direct from A to C.
Similarly, when a consumer books a 5-night stay at a hotel for a discounted extended rate, it’s not five different products/services. It’s one: a 5-night stay. In either case, customers shouldn’t expect to be able to alter the terms of the contract without potential pricing changes.
I concede there is a difference in that hotels are generally unconcerned if one simply leaves their hotel room unoccupied.
And your supermarket doesn’t care if you discard the jelly you bought. But airlines consider it a breach of contract if you discard part of the flight you bought. That’s seriously weird.
No one is saying that if you bought a flight from Tampa to LA through Chicago and the flight is rerouted to not go through Chicago that customers should be compensated. It’s the, “here i am in Chicago, and the airline won’t let me leave” that’s weird.
Yes, there are reasons that make sense to the airlines. But it’s an incredibly weird rule and one that I’m not familiar with in anything else. Maybe time share pitches? You can’t stay in the place if you don’t listen to their pitch? But they are generally recognized to be sketchy. Basically, airlines are acting sketchy to normal people when they set these rules.
If you came to our store and found that the 32 oz corn flakes was on sale for less than the 24 oz corn flakes, but you didn’t want the 32 oz and tried to get the 24 oz for the same price, we wouldn’t let you, at least not without you going Full Karen and the store having to either make an exception or kick you out.
No, but you’d let me buy the 32 oz carton, go home, refill my empty 24oz carton that fits on my shelf, and throw away the rest. You wouldn’t know, and if you learned that i did it, you wouldn’t care.
It’s the “can’t discard the excess” that’s the sketchy part of airline pricing. American consumers are used to other irregularities.
OK, I was under the assumption this was a situation where people did not need to change planes to continue their flight, but were getting off prematurely.
Still, people who break the rules (and more precisely the ticket contracts) are jerks. They will cause the prices for everyone to rise in response. So, go knock your clever selves out. You’re really helpful.
OR they would charge you the discounted for all 5 nights which includes the nights you are not using. Almost always that would be more than the non-discounted 2 nights but let’s just say for argument that the room is $100 per night but if you stay 5+ days it is $30 per night. Should I be allowed to pay $150 and use 2 out of 5 nights or should I have to pay $200 and use exactly 2 nights? And here’s the thing, the hotel regularly overbooks the room so if I check out, they can double-charge for the room for those extra nights getting my $90 plus whatever they are charging my replacement.
That’s the analogy.
They might care. If, for example, the supermarket sold a P&J combo pack that contained a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly, the supermarket might take issue with my ripping open the package and leaving the jelly on the shelf because I only want the peanut butter. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that…
Pricing often appears weird to consumers because we’re not acquainted with the internal considerations that figure into them. I have indeed seen larger items priced cheaper at the supermarket than smaller quantities/weights of the same items to which @Mighty_Mouse alluded.
I contend there is no excess. Again, it’s a trip from A to C. The stop at B is optional and subject to change.