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Lufthansa Airline Sues Passenger for Skipping a Connecting Flight

posted by martyb on Thursday February 14 2019, @12:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-a-leg-up dept.

takyon writes:

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
Travel Site CEO's Reddit AMA Backfires When Redditors Turn on Him

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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:00PM

    by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Thursday February 14 2019, @05:00PM (#801040) Homepage
    Given that most people think that what the airlines are doing is fucked up, how about it gets formally recognised as being fucked up and against the interest of a fair marketplace? How about having consumer protection laws (shock horror, I know that most US readers will have stopped reading already as they are either unfamiliar with the concept, or else view it as government being too invasive and getting in the way of business) that forbid charging less for more. If you can buy X+Y for $A and X for $A+B, then the consumer should have the right to buy X for $A. Effectively it forbids anything from having negative cost (in this case Y, having cost $-B).

    Similar laws (related to alcohol) work well in parts of northern Europe (the tax-all-sins parts, predictably).
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