The scenario from the airline’s POV only makes sense if you consider multiple competing airlines. The key thing about skiplagging is that it’s ultimately about buying a non-stop ticket to a hub for the reduced price of a one-stop ticket to XYZ.
For most itineraries both ends are spokes for all major airlines. So you can get from ABC to XYZ on any of several airlines, but in each case you’re going to pass through some hub along the way and change planes there. The airlines only differ in which hub(s) they use.
For flights directly to/from their hubs however, each airline is able to command a premium price since folks prefer non-stops. Less hassle, much quicker, and less goof-prone.
E.g. non-stops to/from Atlanta on Delta command a premium price. Ditto Denver for United or Charlotte for American. Whereas one-stops on other airlines to/from those same cities are discounted.
You buying the premium product at the discount price is not what they want. Skiplagging amounts to fooling e.g. Delta that you’re not really taking the premium ABC non-stop to e.g. ATL, instead you’re taking the discounted ABC-ATL-XYZ. e.g Delta is not objecting to you buying and not using ATL-XYZ. They’re objecting to you buying ABC-ATL for cheap.
Which… are all things explained at length in the other thread, and why I think the answer to this thread has to be evaluated in terms of contract law and what the airlines are willing to draft into and enforce on their own contracts of carriage. If it makes monetary sense for them to turn a blind eye to hidden city ticketing some of the time or all of the time, then that is precisely what they will do. If it doesn’t, they won’t.
Since I don’t see this as a moral issue, I am satisfied leaving it at that.
It’s not a moral issue. It is a pricing issue, though, which doesn’t mean that we can safely ignore the impact of allowing this behavior.
Discounted prices on trips that go through hubs help to fill out seats on less traveled routes. They’re an opportunity to top off planned trips with travelers who might otherwise not travel at all. As long as skiplagging is not allowed, this system “works”, at least it functions as designed, or something approaching as designed. People who are flying on routes that are in high demand pay a higher price than those flying on routes that aren’t in demand, subsidizing those less demanded flights.
If skiplagging is allowed, everyone will do it all the time. Travel apps will manage it for you, they’ll figure out how to manage checked baggage, whatever is needed to make skiplagging work will be implemented. What this means from the Airline side is that discounts on an unpopular route is exactly the same as discounts on the coincident popular route.
Net result, the discounts will go away. The airlines will no longer subsidize unpopular routes because we will use that subsidy on popular routes instead.
Is that what we travelers should be interested in implementing? It’s a system where less popular routes will become more expensive and less frequent than what we have today, and popular routes will be unchanged.
Where is the long term benefit to the traveler? What I can guarantee is that airlines will not just dumbly go along with skiplaggers booking discount tickets on high demand routes.
I think airlines should be able to define their product (for example, a 2-stop faire to a destination) in a way that satisfies their revenue and cost models, and offer it under binding contractual terms (take both stops), and recover penalties if passengers don’t abide by the terms.
I understand the arguments from layman’s intuition about it not hurting anyone, but the thing is that there are business models larger than your intuition at play, and changing them would mean price increases. If you’re not OK with that, then don’t try to futz around with their cost and revenue models.
(and if we’re going to make adjustments to the cost model, I’d rather it address things like seat size, maximum taxi duration, involuntary bumping, etc)
I get it. It’s all very complex and the result of a lot of algorithms (some of which I even understand!). FWIW, I was first exposed to this concept some years ago on the old snopes board where someone had sought to do exactly what you describe: they created a website (what us old timers used in the days before apps) dedicated to hidden city ticketing, allowing people to input their desired destination and then using I believe third party software to identify carrier routes that would allow them to get there cheaper with hidden city ticketing. It was in the news because that clearly struck a nerve with one or more airlines: the website’s developer, a teenager or twenty-something IIRC, was being sued and passengers were indeed being subjected to sanctions.
This was, I believe, the suit I am recalling from way back:
Although I see the suit has since been dismissed against the webpage developer in question (on jurisdictional grounds—hardly a ringing endorsement), that of course doesn’t mean the airlines can’t still go full tilt against offending passengers, who, unlike a third party webpage developer, have entered into a contract with the airline and presumably want to be able to contract to fly with that airline again in the future (and would be more likely subject to a jurisdiction/venue of the airline’s choosing and convenience, but who honestly don’t even need to be sued in court to be made to feel the airline’s wrath).
Customer: I don’t know exactly. Maybe five gallons. Maybe I should buy six gallons just to make sure I have enough.
Clerk: Oh, no, sir, you can’t do that. If you buy the paint and then don’t use it, you will be liable for penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.
Customer: What?
Clerk: That’s right. We can sell you enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the bedroom, you will be in violation of our tariffs.
Customer: But what does it matter to you whether I use all the paint? I already paid you for it!
Clerk: Sir, there’s no point in getting upset; that’s just the way it is. We make plans based upon the idea that you will use all the paint, and when you don’t, it just causes us all sorts of problems.
Customer: This is crazy! I suppose something terrible will happen if I don’t keep painting until after Saturday night!
I’m probably paying too much attention to this without really wrapping my mind around the economic and legal implications. I note one of the recent lawsuits posted was against the skiplagging website, rather than against the traveler. The allegations in that suit impressed me as more reasonable than blaming a traveller who decides to only accept a portion of what they paid for.
Yeah, airlines are trying to make a buck in a competitive industry. And yeah, many many travelers (of which I am NOT one) seem to welcome any inconvenience/indignity for a slightly cheaper fare.
But airlines don’t get tremendous sympathy from me from my recollections of reoganizations in which staff and retirees got screwed, but top execs made out like bandits. The incredible nickeling and diming of baggage/legroom/whatever fees. Increasingly treating passengers like cattle. Also, enjoying tremendous governmental subsidies which could - instead - be allocated to regional high speed rail. Just not an industry that I get all emotional about.
I’m trying to think of another situation in which a customer pays for a certain right or service, and then gets sued for not asking that the other party provide that good or service. Especially when that good/service can be resold. The airlines’ position really seems like corporate/wealth welfare - where corporations and wealthy organizations want to keep all the profits to themselves, but spred the costs to everyone else.
Maybe they really need to revisit what services they can provide at what profitability.
Agree the whole thing is a mess. whole lotta cross-subsidization going on within the product space. But that’s true in grocery stores and department stores and car dealerships and car manufacturers and …
This makes no economic sense. Let’s say a passenger buys a ticket for a flight from New York to Los Angeles with a stop in Chicago. The airline sold that passenger a ticket for a price that the airline felt was reasonable and would produce sufficient profit. So what difference does it make to the airline if the passenger flies from New York to Los Angeles or New York to Chicago or decides to skip the flight entirely and remain in New York? In all of these, the airline was paid for its services even if it didn’t have to supply those services.
This is no different that somebody ordering a meal in a restaurant, paying the price on the menu, and then deciding they only want to eat half the meal. The restaurant has no business complaining that the customer was supposed to eat the full meal and eating only part of it is against the rules.
And, in fact, the U.S. government subsidizes airline service to many smaller airports, to ensure that they continue to be served, even though they may be unprofitable to do so for the airlines.
What difference does it make to AMC if you’re sitting in their theater at 11am rather than 6pm (or if you’re under age 11 or over age 65)? It’s the same movie, the same chair, the same building and workers.
This is finding a workaround so that your discounted Matinee ticket (or Child ticket, or Senior ticket) is good for a non-discounted customer. Then someone says, we should always be able to exchange our discount tickets for full price shows, since that discount ticket includes “sufficient profit”.
We get that right to switch openly permitted, then act shocked when the result is no more matinee pricing rather than matinee pricing all day.
Seriously. I don’t hear the airlines bellyaching over people who simply fail to show-up for the start of their paid itinerary. They’re like… “Cool! He did not show up for the flight - now we can sell that seat to someone else!”
This is all simply about money, and that people have determined how to exploit a simple flaw in the way the airlines organize their flights to avoid paying a premium price that’s artificially higher than it needs to be (because it’s a “popular” direct flight that the airlines can overcharge for).
Are these subsidies paid for booked flights or for actual passengers transported?
If the former, then it becomes clear that the airlines are indeed losing money from skipjackers, since they made a flight to say Macon GA under the assumption that they would get up to $200 per passenger from the feds that never materialized because the passengers got off early.
But if its paid based on bookings, then if anyone is getting screwed it’s the government since rather than guaranteeing access to Macon, they are just subsiding trips to Baltimore.
The difference is I bought a ticket for the 11am showing rather than the 6pm showing. If I go to the 6pm showing, I’m using a service I didn’t pay for.
But according to your argument if I bought a ticket for the 11am showing and then decided to go home rather than watch the movie or leave the theater halfway through the movie, I somehow owe the theater because I didn’t complete the viewing I paid for. I didn’t complete the contract.
Which is nonsense. Once I’ve paid for my ticket, I’ve done everything I’m obligated to do. At that point, I’m free to decide if I want to actually use all, some, or none of the service I paid for.
What’s next? Should I pay the theater a dollar because I decided not to buy any popcorn?
Exactly. If an airline employee went up to passengers and told them they have to pay a five dollar surcharge because they’re wearing shoes, I swear half of them would hand over the money. All it takes is an authority figure telling them it’s a rule.
used in the days before apps) dedicated to hidden city ticketing, allowing people to input their desired destination and then using I believe third party software to identify carrier routes that would allow them to get there cheaper with hidden city ticketing. It was in the news because that clearly struck a nerve with one or more airlines: the website’s developer, a teenager or twenty-something IIRC, was being sued and passengers were indeed being subjected to sanctions.