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Lufthansa sues passenger who skipped his flight
A method commonly used by airline passengers to get cheaper fares is at the center of a court row between a German airline and one of its customers.
Lufthansa has taken a passenger, who didn't show up for the last leg of his ticketed journey, to court in an apparent bid to clamp down on "hidden city" ticketing. The practice involves passengers leaving their journey at a layover point, instead of making a final connection.
For instance, someone flying from New York to San Francisco could book a cheaper trip from New York to Lake Tahoe with a layover in San Francisco and get off there, without bothering to take the last leg of the flight.
The unnamed passenger skipped a flight from Frankfurt to Oslo and flew using a separate Lufthansa reservation from Frankfurt to Berlin instead. Lufthansa is calling this a violation of their terms and conditions and has sued the passenger for €2,112 ($2,386).
This method does not work if you have checked bags, and other people have reported retaliation from airlines for the practice.
Also at Fortune and Popular Mechanics.
See also: Airlines hate 'hidden city ticketing,' but it's still one of the best ways to save a ton on your flights — if you know how to do it
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday February 14 2019, @01:45AM (1 child)
Really, this is the airlines trying to smash "the invisible hand" with a mallet, and when they miss they try to trick a judge into smashing it with his gavel.
The crux of it is that traveling from A to C isn't all that popular, so there's only so much they can demand for that trip, BUT it is profitable at that price so they offer it. It just so happens that the most efficient way to accomplish the trip is A to B to C. so that's what they do. So far so good.
The problem is, even though they could obviously provide profitable trips from A to B for not more than the trip A to B to C, they charge double because B is popular and they can get away with it. If there was a healthy market, they couldn't do that, but that's not the actual situation.
The problem for the airlines is that people are getting wise to the scam and have found a workaround. This is the airlines saying "please ignore the man behind the curtain OR WE'LL SUE YOUR ASS OFF!"
What the airline is actually losing is the ability to take advantage of an unhealthy market and an inadequately informed customer..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:09PM
I view pricing schemes that include negative-cost legs as perturbing the market in such a way as to make it less healthy. They're doing this because they've caused a mess by doing it and other stuff like it.
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