from the Quitting-overbooking-then? dept.
The Skiplagged web site is a one-person project helping people find cheaper airfares by linking them to less-expensive multistop flights where one of the layovers is their actual destination.
According to CBS News:
It works like this: A traveler looking to fly from Newark to Miami might find it's actually cheaper to buy a ticket to Charleston with a stopover in Miami.
At the time, the direct flight was $541 while the Skiplagged route was $325.
The ploy has been around for years, but wasn't that well known until 22-year-old Aktarer Zaman created Skiplagged. Now the airlines (and Orbitz) are lawyering up.
In a federal lawsuit filed last month, United Airlines, one of the world's largest carriers, and Orbitz, said, "Zaman has intentionally and maliciously used Skiplagged to damage [their] businesses."
American Airlines Group Inc., as stated in Bloombert News, claim that Zaman is helping people engage in dishonest, if not criminal behavior.
“Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical,” according to the letter by American, which isn’t party to the case. “It is tantamount to switching price tags to obtain a lower price on goods sold at department stores.”
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:36PM
Schemes like that are very common, and they're definitely not criminal. Example: buying a cellphone with a 1-yr contract with a carrier for a lot cheaper than the cellphone alone, and having the cellphone unlocked. Buying a brand-new printer with the first ink cartridges and reselling the printer, for less than the price of the ink cartridged.
The problem lies with the seller's pricing scheme, which often walks on its head, or is downright deceptive in the first place. I'm sorry, but a multistop flight selling cheaper than a shorter, one-stop flight isn't normal. They can't blame customers for taking advantage of stupid pricing schemes.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:54AM
Actually yes, a multi stop flight is normally cheaper.
Take a typical LHR-JFK flight. I can fly direct on AA, BA, VS, DL, UA and a few others fairly easily for £5k return (or as low as £2k, or even £1k in the current BA sale!)
However lets assume that £5k, typical business cost. KLM want me to fly with them instead, so they undercut the fare, and charge £4k but I have to travel via AMS. That makes sense, I may add 6 hours onto my trip by flying via AMS if I save £1k.
However look from the AMS pov. KLM, DL, UA etc charge £5k return, but BA will offer a flight via the nightmare of heathrow, and charge £3500 return to attract the custom.
Now if BA didn't offer the £3500 fare to AMS people they would lose out on customers, and be unable to keep that handy hourly service to JFK going (or twice daily to LA, or daily service to rio or Sydney) - there's not enough people willing to pay the price to allow flight revenue to exceed cost.
However if BA offered the £3500 fare to London people, they would be turning down £1500 a set for people who would be willing to pay £5k, and the same problem applies.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @12:57PM
“Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical,” --- WTF?!?
(Score: 3, Funny) by BsAtHome on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:16PM
Not handing over your bank account is the utmost unethical thing to do. You do know that your money does not belong to you? It never was yours in the first place and assuming anything else is a criminal offence to the rich's and corporation's capitalism. How dare you questioning the status quo!
/sarcasm may be part of this post (for the humourless poor souls)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:29PM
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:55PM
Read the airline contract fine print. Forgot which airline (maybe Delta?), but it said that skipping an end segment (nice new name, "skiplag") would result in them charging your credit card for the difference...as if you had bought the higher priced ticket to your actual destination.
Ridiculous--yes, but these contract terms are what they offer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:14AM
By buying a television that I sold you you agree to never drive a car ever again. If you do then you must pay me $200. It's written in the fine print.
The airline's job is to get me from point A to point B. Where I choose to go from there is absolutely none of their business.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 24 2014, @02:35PM
(Score: 1) by mgcarley on Wednesday December 24 2014, @06:11PM
Shit, then I'd better start suing every airline (at least in the US) that ever sold me a ticket with a connecting flight because no direct flights existed or were available (even if no direct flight was available due to the distance I was travelling, or because the airport I was getting off at couldn't take a jumbo).
Or, for that matter, every airline that has sold me a ticket and been unable to get me in the air (I'd have AA for this on 3 separate occasions in the last year or so) ESPECIALLY if another airline leaving from the same airport (or a nearby airport) was able to do it without any issues.
Oh, and then what about the legality or ethics of code-sharing? If Airline A sells me the ticket but I'm actually on Airline B? What if Airline B is an airline on my (or my company's) no-fly list (like AA now is, and Air France has been for a while, and Malaysian probably should be).
Founder & COO, Hayai. We're in India (hayai.in) & the USA (hayaibroadband.com) // Twitter: @mgcarley
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:02PM
In this example they are offering to carry you first to Miami, then onwards to Charleston, for nearly $200 less than they want to simply go to Miami and get off. There is a reason for this - they are trying to take the maxim 'charge all the market will bear' and squeeze every last penny out of it. But that does not make it any less absurd, and it certainly does not make it 'unethical' for anyone who notices the absurdity to take advantage of it, in the obvious way - booking through to Charleston and leaving the seat empty for the last leg.
Does this harm the airline in any way? It does not. Their expenses actually go *down* slightly in this scenario, compared to a passenger taking the same ticket and traveling through to Charleston, because the plane will be slightly lighter, not only on the last leg but probably also on the way to Miami, since you cant check luggage if you are doing this. Of course they would be happier if you paid $200 more for the overpiced ticket to Miami instead, but if you just skipped the trip and someone else took that seat and went all the way to Charleston that would not make the airline any better off.
Reading price tags and shopping smart is not 'criminal' or 'dishonest' or 'unethical' and the allegation is a shocking absurdity.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:17PM
Exactly. But it's never been in the corporate interest to do what's best for the customer. Their interest is in the bottom line, and in their myopic view they can't even see that they will break even if not outright profit from customers doing this.
Besides, if the airlines really want to take the position that getting off of a multi stop flight early is criminal, they better be ready for the shitload of lawsuits headed their way. There are any number of valid reasons for a customer to decide to end his flight plan at an early stopover. What's next, bus companies suing or criminally charging riders who buy a ticket from Atlanta to Houston but decide to get off the bus in Birmingham and rent a car the rest of the way? The customer paid for the ticket to Houston, so the bus company got their money already.
If anything is "criminal" it's their attitude towards the people the are supposed to be serving, the ones who pay their salaries.
(Score: 2, Informative) by tonyPick on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:28PM
What's next, bus companies suing or criminally charging riders who buy a ticket from Atlanta to Houston but decide to get off the bus in Birmingham and rent a car the rest of the way? The customer paid for the ticket to Houston, so the bus company got their money already.
This can happpen on the UK rail network
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/8376765.Couple_fined___114_for_leaving_train_too_early/ [dailyecho.co.uk]
http://conversation.which.co.uk/transport-travel/petty-train-fines-for-getting-off-early/ [which.co.uk]
The conditions of advance tickets do state that you have to make the journey printed on your ticket without breaking that trip or changing destination.
...
The rail network’s argument is that if you want to catch any old train and break your journey, you’ll have to pay for it with a walk-up ticket. And by ‘walk-up ticket’ I mean the normal (usually expensive) ticket you buy when you don’t want to be tied down to a particular train.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:46AM
On my last flight I did just this. A few years ago we wanted to go to the Cayman Islands, but were concerned about hurricanes as it was at the height of hurricane season there. But we decided to risk it and go anyway. There was a hurricane, but ironically it hit Washington DC instead of the Caymans and we were stranded. USAIR could get us back to the connecting point in Charlotte but no further, so we got off there and rented a car. The airline agreed to give us a refund for the leg of the flight that wasn't provided, but the bastards of course never sent the refund.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sjames on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:49PM
Put another way, in spite of their penny pinching (and leg and buttocks and anything else assaulted by the tiny seats) and moaning about losses they can, in fact, profitably fly you to your destination for several hundred less than they are actually charging you.
If there was actually adequate competition, they would be forced to lower prices down to or below the price you can get by picking a longer flight and skipping the last leg.
Now we come to a test. Market theory requires that all actors be rational and well informed. AS such, Skiplagged deserves applause for making things work better. If they lose, it will show once and for all that our economy is mercantilism, not capitalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:03PM
...think of the airlines!
They can't make so much profit anymore? Boooo Hoooo
Glad to see technology is slowly eroding those industries' money grab.
There are so many stories of how they rob the public and you can't sue them cause the price of a lawyer is more than the cost of returning money..
Another instance is where the price of a 1 way ticket is only marginally less than a 2 way.
We please you to continue more ways of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
Nice job Soylent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 24 2014, @03:54AM
Airlines have never been profitable.
(Score: 2) by threedigits on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:38PM
"Eat all your dinner, you naughty rascal! Do they teach you anything in school? You will never become anything but an unethical criminal."
So, better behave or terrorists win.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:44PM
Personally I have no sympathy for the airlines in this situation with their truly byzantine price structure for tickets. So for all of you youngins out there here is an oldie but goodie:
If paint was sold like airline tickets:
Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?
Clerk: Well sir, that depends on a lot of things.
Customer: Can’t you give me an approximate price?
Clerk: Our lowest price is our introductory special at $12 a gallon. After that we have dozens of different prices up to $199.
Customer: What’s the difference in the quality of the paint?
Clerk: Oh, there’s no difference. It’s all exactly the same stuff.
Customer: Well, in that case I’ll take your $12 paint.
Clerk: Well actually the $12 variety is only available on our website. If you want to buy it here at the store you’ll be charged an additional $20 Customer Convenience Fee
Customer: So if I go home and get it off the website, its only $12?
Clerk: That’s correct sir – plus a Credit Card Usage Fee of $6 and then there’s standard Shipping and Handling of $15.
Customer: What? So in other words buying online would cost me almost exactly the same as what I’d have to pay here in the store?
Clerk: I suppose so, but if you buy it here you get to use it immediately. Online purchases take ten business days to get to you – unless you pay the optional $25 Express My Paint Fee.
Customer: You’ve got to be kidding me!
Clerk: Well no sir, but it’s academic anyway as right now the $12 paint is completely sold out in both places.
Customer: That’s BS. I’m looking at shelves full of the stuff!
Clerk: Ah, but that doesn’t mean it’s available for sale. We sell only a certain number of introductory priced cans on any given day. Oops, look at that! It just became available again – at $17.50.
Customer: C’mon! You mean to say it went up while I’m standing here?!
Clerk: ‘Fraid so. Inventory control changes our prices all the time.
I strongly recommend you purchase your paint as soon as possible as it could go up again. How many gallons do you want?
Customer: Well, maybe three gallons. No, make that four, I don’t want to run out. I assume I can return anything I don’t open?
Clerk: Certainly sir. The $12 paint is non-refundable, but if you return it within 48 hours you will be entitled to a $5 credit towards the future purchase of another gallon of the same color at the same or higher price.
Customer: That’s crazy. In that case I’ll just give any unopened cans to my brother as he’s planning to repaint his home soon.
Clerk: Sorry sir, no-can-do! Our terms and CANditions – that’s a little in-house joke – prohibit paint transfer. It is strictly for the use of the original purchaser.
Customer: But wait a minute, I hadn’t spotted those “Paint Sale – $9.99* a Can” signs over there? That sounds like a much better deal.
Clerk: Ah yes, that’s from our low cost paint division. The asterisk denotes that the cans are actually half-gallons and the price is based on a minimum purchase of two. There is also an additional Environmental Fee of $5 per can, a non-refundable Can Deposit of $3.50, a Paint Facility Charge of $5 and if you want more than one color, the second has a $25 surcharge and the third is $50 extra.
Customer: This is utterly ridiculous. To hell with this! I’ll buy what I need somewhere else!
Clerk: Well sir, you may be able to buy paint for some rooms from another store, but you won’t be able to find paint for your connecting hall and stairway anywhere but here. And I should also point out that if you want Uni-Directional paint it is priced at $249 a gallon.
Customer: I thought your most expensive paint was $199!
Clerk: That’s only if you paint non-stop all the way around the room and back to the point at which you started. Stairways and hallways are considered one-way exceptions to the rule.
Customer: So, if I buy the $199 paint and use it in my hallway what are you going to do about it – send some goons in to paint over it?
Clerk: Wow, I believe you’re getting it now sir. But no, please, that would be plain silly. We’ll simply charge you a Direction Adjustment Fee plus the difference to $249 on your next purchase.
Customer: Next purchase? No way! I’m out ‘a here
Clerk: At Skyhigh Paints we never forget you have a choice, so thanks for shopping with us. Have a nice day!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @01:52PM
OMG! Ha HA ha Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's the funnest thing I seen this morning, THANK YOU!
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:41PM
OMG! Ha HA ha Ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You may be laughing now, but that laugh is going to turn very bitter once you need to buy an airplane ticket!
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:59PM
With some effort and rewriting, this would make a beautiful systemd post.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Non Sequor on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:47PM
Logistics.
Efficient use of airline seats is a problem with a lot of interacting substructures. Flights with empty seats increase cost per occupant. Early bookings are cheaper because they provide more advanced information on how much capacity is easily booked. Prices also have to be competitive with competitors for the same time range (potentially offset by miles-program lock-in). The planes have maintenance schedules. Sometimes a plane needs to fly a low demand route just to get it to where it needs to be to service a higher demand route.
Yes, their costs per seat do vary dramatically depending on when you book and with which stopovers and they likely have agreements with different booking sites that affect costs but may offer different logistics advantages. I don't agree with using the legal system to deal with a problem, but yes I have some sympathy for their desire to avoid adding another layer of meta-strategy to an already difficult set of problems.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by monster on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:02PM
False. Empty seats mean less weight, which means less fuel consumption, which means increased profit over the sold seats. What decreases profits is unsold seats.
All of that happens just the same in other businesses, without all the fuss about ticket prices. Like concerts, for example. What happens with airlines is that the scalping [wikipedia.org] is done directly by them, so they have an incentive to penalize anyone who disturbs their business.
False again. Their operating costs per seat is quite stable, it's the window of opportunity to increase prices what varies so much, based on offer and demand (again, scalping). An airline could set an initial price based on their estimation of how many passengers would typically fly (as they do) and then keep it fixed, make the flight and have a profit even if nobody but one appeared at the airport and had to fly almost empty. They simply would have a not so big profit.
They do this because they can and allows them to increase profits, not because it's a need.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:56PM
> False. Empty seats mean less weight, which means less fuel consumption, which means increased profit over the sold seats.
Not necessarily. Someone who doesn't take the flight they paid for can't buy additional upgrades like drinks, food, premium entertainment, wi-fi, business-class upgrades, lounge access, and so on.
(Score: 1) by skater on Tuesday December 23 2014, @06:21PM
Not necessarily. Someone who doesn't take the flight they paid for can't buy additional upgrades like drinks, food, premium entertainment, wi-fi, business-class upgrades, lounge access, and so on.
Someone who is interested in this Skiplagged thing probably wouldn't be spending money on those things anyway.
I have to say, I hadn't heard of this Skiplagged, but I love it. Calling Nelson Muntz: "Ha, ha!"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by monster on Tuesday December 23 2014, @06:21PM
That argument is dangerously near to : If you don't buy any drink in the plane, you are stealing us!
On a more serious tone, weight reduction would be a fact, while upgrade buying would be just a possibility (the person may buy something, or may not). It's akin to account lotto prizes as profits before you know if you won, and then accounting the not-profit of not winning as losses.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Wednesday December 24 2014, @05:01PM
> On a more serious tone, weight reduction would be a fact, while upgrade buying would be just a possibility
I have no doubt that the airlines have people (algorithms, whatever) who figure out the expected amount of additional revenue they could expect to extract from having an average passenger in the seat, as well as the fuel cost of having an average passenger (and their bags) in the seat.
I'm not saying it would necessarily net out positively or negatively for the airline, but simply that flying with the seat empty isn't necessarily beneficial. There's a lot more to think about than just the weight of the passenger.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:51PM
> False. Empty seats mean less weight, which means less fuel consumption, which means increased profit over the sold seats.
Not necessarily. Someone who doesn't take the flight they paid for can't buy additional upgrades like drinks, food, premium entertainment, wi-fi, business-class upgrades, lounge access, and so on.
You forget that those sold but unused seats are often resold to standby passengers, increasing the profit on the seat.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:39PM
Divide the fuel needed to fly the weight of the empty plane by the number of occupied seats. Also maintenance, pilot pay, and airport fees tend to be denominated in flights rather than passengers.
I have heard that if you add up all of the profits of the airline industry and subtract all of the losses, as of recent years the number is negative. Worldwide, airlines are known to operate with varying levels of government support, and in that respect, they may be more comparable to utilities.
FYI, I have no industry knowledge here, but some of the problems involved are within my educational background. I'm a discrete math guy doing actuarial work. You're actually proposing an actuarial type solution (pricing based on stable average patterns).
In this situation, the actuarial type solution gets reamed by the cost structure and the game theory aspect of the competitive environment. The competitor who prices based on minimizing unused capacity is going to sell more tickets on cheaper than average flights and you're going to sell more tickets on more expensive than average flights.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 1) by monster on Wednesday December 24 2014, @07:54AM
You are doing it wrong (TM).
Sold seats are that, sold. The airline have already gotten the main profit from them, even if nobody flies. You may account some variables added to it (like onboard food/drinks, luggage check-ins, and so on) but then you also have to account for:
- As Joe Desertrat points out, empty seats are routinely resold.
- Overbooking. If any other enterprise sells more items than it has available, it has the legal duty to fulfill those transactions (and may face criminal proceedings). Airlines can do just that, reimburse the tickets of those than can't fly and call it a day.
- Airlines' ability to delay or outright cancel a flight and just have to reimburse the tickets and some minor expenses to passengers, even if that hurts them for much more.
As I have already said, calling empty (but sold) seats in a flight as losses is bogus. You may have gotten more profit for them by resaling them if you knew in advance they would be empty, sure, but you already got the money you asked for in the first place! The other problems you present are a matter of cost optimization by the airlines, not passengers' duty.
What we are talking about, in the end, is airlines willing to capture as much consumer surplus as they can and being gamed at it by this skiplagged trick. If you want a good read about pricing, albeit very nonformal, check the Camels and Rubber Duckies [joelonsoftware.com] classic from Joel Spolsky. It even has a part about airlines, specifically.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday December 23 2014, @07:57PM
OTOH, if the flight hadn't already reached the point of profitability, it would be cancelled. So whether you jump off early of not, they made their money. Fair is fair.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Wednesday December 24 2014, @12:11AM
Generally they would only cancel a flight if it doesn't force them to run a deadhead (empty vehicle moving from point a to point b for the sake of getting the vehicle where it needs to be for another route). Even if the passengers don't pay the cost of the flight, they may offset the cost of moving the plane somewhere else, where it needs to be.
The deadhead may be cheaper if purely customer related expenses exceed revenue for the flight, but the largest costs are per flight rather than per customer.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday December 24 2014, @10:14AM
The point though is that it was cheaper for them to fly the route than not. You the passenger paying them for a seat on it is money they have that they wouldn't have otherwise and the plane is flying anyway.
The flight is profitable because if they don't fly then, they can't do the next flight.
(Score: 2) by WillR on Tuesday December 23 2014, @11:21PM
Flights with empty seats increase cost per occupant. Efficient use of airline seats is a problem with a lot of interacting substructures. Flights with empty seats increase cost per occupant. Early bookings are cheaper because they provide more advanced information on how much capacity is easily booked.
Flights with empty but paid-for seats should cost less per passenger because they're carrying less weight on the same revenue - people who got off the plane early effectively weigh nothing. And, hey, if the airlines find that they benefit from having more accurate information about their passengers' trips, they could try not creating financial incentives to lie.
(Score: 1) by srobert on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:14PM
I hope my cable provider never finds out that I don't actually watch all the stations that are in my cable-tv package. Would they then charge me more?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:32PM
If you could figure out how to keep the ESPNs off your cable, you'd save like $20/month. It is usually contractually forced on just about everyone. Just one of the reasons to become a cord-cutter.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday December 23 2014, @08:02PM
The sad part is that even though I like watching baseball, ESPNs coverage is barely better than not watching at all. Especially the replays where they show you 3 innings of nothing doing and skip the pivotal play that changed the game.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:32PM
Does it mean that if you have checked in luggage you have to go to the counter before they send it in the other plane for your connection? Or nobody checks in anything anymore and would rather cram the overhead bins with their big suitcases ;-) ?
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Tuesday December 23 2014, @03:47PM
My mom did this a couple years ago, ditched the last leg of her connecting flight to Philly and got off in Newark. It saved her like $300. When comparing tickets and whatnot, both the direct flight, and the $300 cheaper layover through Newark were on the same damn plane to Newark. Completely bat-shit insane
I've always thought a much more fair way to handle this would be to charge per lb. The airlines know exactly what their per pound/mile cost is. Just let me pay for my fat ass + any baggage + a % for profit and call it a day. Of course, we may find that a clear pricing scheme makes the cost of a ticket too high -- so be it.
Instead we get overly ridiculous schemes. I would argue that the pricing process is so opaque that even the airlines don't know if any particular flight is profitable or not on any given day. It's no wonder the airlines can't seem to make money.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 1) by danaris on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:25PM
It's no wonder the airlines can't seem to make money.
Actually, the American airline industry has been in the black for a few years now. They're just keeping up the various schemes because now we've gotten used to them and are willing to accept their ridiculous gouging as part of the cost of air travel. After all, why should they stop trying to squeeze every red cent out of us if we're not going to absolutely stop all air travel otherwise?
Dan Aris
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:36PM
Instead we get overly ridiculous schemes. I would argue that the pricing process is so opaque that even the airlines don't know if any particular flight is profitable or not on any given day.
That might have been true 10+ years ago. But they data-mine the shit out of this stuff nowadays, they've got yield-management "artificial intelligence" that is specifically designed to optimize this stuff based on real-time booking patterns. But they can't detect people who abandon the last leg of a flight so that screws with their AI's ability to screw with us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @04:47PM
Sure they can. They just need to figure out statistically how many people jump ship early and work that into the pricing. Honestly, I'd be surprised if they already didn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:21PM
Short of making the flight attendants do a headcount after each layover, they don't have a way to measure that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:51PM
They have the data. Simply have a list of all of the passengers booked on both an inbound and an outbound flight. Then query for those passengers who had their boarding pass scanned on the inbound flight but not the outbound flight.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:18PM
Purchasing a ticket to a point beyond the actual destination and getting off the aircraft at the connecting point is unethical
Wow, they sure have an interesting view of what the word unethical means.
I would have thought their policy of charging you more for less would be the unethical one....
Redictionarification?
(Score: 1) by Refugee from beyond on Tuesday December 23 2014, @05:34PM
Corporations are entities with negative ethical score. In other words their "unethical" is a positive value.
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 1) by utoddl on Tuesday December 23 2014, @08:22PM
Airlines aren't actually in the business of getting you where you want to go. They are in the business of flying planes from various airports to other airports. Passengers are just a means to subsidize that. Doesn't make what they're doing any less stupid, but it should give you a different way to think about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @10:23PM
So, what everyone is saying is that they'd rather pay more to the most popular destinations that a particular airline serves than pay more to the least popular (but happen to be on the way) destinations. Yeah, just forget volume, forget that different airports charge different prices for fuel, and let the airlines raise rates across the board on all continuing destinations. Hey - better yet! - let's just make all flights one way and drop all those money-saving hubs and money-losing way stops.
Is Skiplagged unlawful? Well, no. But if it causes the airlines to lose money because the airlines are actually discounting routes where the people are fully booked through to, then yes the dude is interfering with their revenue stream.
More to the point: If it isn't costing the airlines any money, then the airlines don't actually have a case.
(Score: 1) by Wrong Turn Ahead on Wednesday December 24 2014, @11:11PM
It's one guy working on a pet project that doesn't even provide the actual booking. Buying him out would have been cheaper and it would have attracted less negative attention. They could have then shut it down and been done with it. Hell, they could have retained the developer and had him work on some other project. Now I think all airlines are price gouging litigious jerks...