11 ms·

Teenager ‘taken to security room and interrogated’ for throwaway ticketing

76 points by georgecmu 3y ago

sonicshadow 3y ago
I would love to know of another service or product where NOT using the product results in being detained. Airlines sound more and more like a cartel than anything these days.
- hindsightbias 3y ago
  Detained is his drama fathers word. There’s no evidence he was forced or dragged somewhere. They wanted to question him, probably in a private area. He wasn’t getting on any of their flights w/o answering so he went along with it.
  - photonerd 3y ago
    > They wanted to question him, probably in a private area. That’s literally detaining him, so I am not sure what you’re objecting to here.
    - boring_twenties 3y ago
      Literally not. If he complied voluntarily whilst having the option to leave, that's the exact opposite of detaining him.
      - cjbgkagh 3y ago
        He doesn’t have to comply, he could have simply walked to his destination instead of flying
      - axus 3y ago
        The article isn't clear if he complied voluntarily. Was breaking their handhold and dashing out of the airport into a taxi-cab his other option?
        boring_twenties 3y ago
        IANAL but I think unless you are arrested, a handhold in and of itself would be illegal?
      - jerf 3y ago
        "Voluntarily" may be doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. People are often not fully aware of what they can and can not refuse to do. Airports have gotten a lot more complicated on that front in the last 20 years.
      - Tronno 3y ago
        Depending on the age of the child, they may not be able to legally consent to whatever happened, especially if coercion was involved. I suggest giving the victim some leeway here, given that so many airlines have a track record of passenger abuse.
      - mock-possum 3y ago
        He’s a teenager squaring up with security guards - there’s a power imbalance there that bears consideration imo
      - sonicshadow 3y ago
        Do you think there's a situation in an airport, of all places, where you refusing to comply with a security guard's orders goes well for you? I comply with everything an airport official says because a) I'm brown and b) I'm at the airport to go on a flight, not argue with some power-tripping douche.
        boring_twenties 3y ago
        I think an airport is probably one of the least worst places: a very public place with lots of witnesses and cameras, plus its own relatively relaxed police force. If you have a flight to catch, of course, the calculus changes but once that becomes a lost cause, all bets are off.
        sonicshadow 3y ago
        So more cameras to catch you slipping up once or thinking you have the "right" to do something, when in reality you don't because it's an airport. If I miss my flight I'm more motivated to catch the next one, not test my available civil liberties in front of poorly-paid ex-military. Best case you end up detained (in the real sense) for a long time and potentially acquitted in court, months later and having incurred plenty of mental trauma. Worst case you just go to jail. Sounds like a lose-lose
      - public_defender 3y ago
        https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ Ha. Ha. Suddenly everyone's an expert in what constitutes detention. There's actually a big difference between "literally not detaining" someone and not detaining someone. I think the detention naysayers in this thread have failed to consider that the people who practice this type of behavior are experts. Frequently the whole business of these interrogators is to make sure that someone is "not literally" detained, but that they are in fact detained, in the sense that they do not feel free to leave. In this way, the interrogator has not committed a crime or malfeasance by falsely detaining a person, but they isolate them and make them feel as though they need to answer questions. The worst part is that there is almost no clear coaching for how a person is supposed to get through this type of situation. With the police, we can give clear advice: (1) ask "am I being detained or am I free to leave?" (2) Refuse to engage in conversation; (3) Ask for a lawyer. But these aren't police. They will tell you that you are not being detained. They have a few hundred dollars of your money and maybe a bunch of your clothes, and they just need you to answer a few questions before you get on the plane. What are you going to say? "I refuse to answer questions without a lawyer"? "I refuse to remain in this tiny office answering questions"? Ok. Great. You're banned, and maybe turned over to TSA for a real custodial interrogation for acting so suspiciously at an airport. Anyway, all this to say that your word games with "literally" this and that are not clever because this is actually much worse than a real custodial interrogation because the rights and obligations are much less clear and that lack of clarity accrues to the corporation's advantage.
        sonicshadow 3y ago
        Thank you, I was waiting for someone to clarify the word "detain". You're right this is more nefarious than an official police detention
        boring_twenties 3y ago
        If they are airline employees and not cops I'm not aware of any way they can detain you, short of a citizen's arrest which usually requires them to have observed you committing a felony? In this case I would just declare that I'm leaving and if any resistance, demand the real cops be called or call them yourself. Same if they refuse to return your cash and/or luggage.
    - bobbean 3y ago
      It's literally not. That's the definition of an interview
      - photonerd 3y ago
        They forced him to officially stay in a place & be questioned or he was going to be removed & deprived of something he legally purchased. That’s detainment by coercion at least.
  - boeingUH60 3y ago
    I agree with you on this. The issue is that people want to get outraged at any little thing nowadays out of self-righteousness.
    - jackmott42 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - mitchdoogle 3y ago
      Intimidating and scaring people before they have done anything is worthy of outrage. That should not be acceptable at airports anywhere. And that's before you even consider that what the kid was trying to do was not unethical, so receiving any punishment whatsoever is outrageous.
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - sonicshadow 3y ago
    Alright the first paragraph: > A teen traveling solo for the first time from Gainesville, Florida to Charlotte was taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father. What is your definition of "detained"?
    - awb 3y ago
      Private companies have no legal right to detain anyone. They probably intimidated him into coming with them and he agreed / complied.
    - LeafItAlone 3y ago
      detained: to hold or keep in or as if in custody > according to the boy’s father Who wasn’t present. The airline may have asked nicely and the son complied and never tried or asked to leave. That’s not being detained. We will probably only know the details if this goes to court and it comes out or if video of the interaction is released.
      - sonicshadow 3y ago
        I guess the burden of proof lies with the person writing the story, so if you want to believe it's all wrong then go ahead.
        LeafItAlone 3y ago
        This entire article is based off the word of the father who has supposedly been flying with Skiplagged for over five years and somehow didn’t know that the airlines didn’t look favorably on it. That makes me just a little suspicious, since the time I heard of it my first question was “is this allowed”.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        If the boy is an underage teen, then it would also be illegal to interrogate him without the presence of a guardian. If I am going about my business, but you request that I stop what I'm doing to follow you to have a chat, you are detaining me. period. you pussyfooting around this like it's not is just disingenuous at best
  - mitchdoogle 3y ago
    It seems to me like the kid thought he didn't have a choice but to go with them. That would be forcing him. If it was typical security/police talk, it probably went something like, "You need to come with us. We need to ask you a few questions". I'd guess most teenagers would be too intimidated and scared to do anything else. If they didn't specifically inform him that he didn't have to go with them or answer their questions, then it sounds like he was detained
- awb 3y ago
  The airline’s position is that it’s a contract. When you buy the ticket you agree in the T&C not to game the system. The other way to fix it would be to charge every leg at direct flight prices and then offer a rebate for completing your full itinerary.
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    The correct way to fix it is for every leg offered by an airline to be priced comparably, with the per-leg pricings transparently displayed to customers as part of the booking process, such that skiplagging is no longer a necessary tactic to avoid getting gouged by the airline cartels. But since that might cost these businesses some money, there's limited legislative pressure to force them to do the right things.
  - mcv 3y ago
    I don't understand the logic behind charging less for two legs than for just one. That sounds incredibly shady to me, and for an airline to be able to enforce it like this should definitely be illegal. It sounds like abuse of market power, rather than an honest supply-demand with an eye on their costs, thing. They try to extort more for the shorter trip due to artificial scarcity.
    - awb 3y ago
      It is a supply and demand effect. Prices aren’t generated based on a fixed markup over costs. It’s way more expensive to fly into smaller regional hubs like Charlotte because the supply of airlines that want to maintain a presence there is smaller than a national hub like New York City. That’s how you get these upstart airlines that take over a corner of the US when the prices get too high. Then the big airlines drop their prices to compete because the supply went up.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      It is abuse of market power. They are trying to extract monopoly rents out of people that need to be in Charlotte because they dominate that airport. They can’t do that in NYC because of heavy competition. There are effectively four major airlines. That’s just not nearly enough to avoid anti-competitive bullshit like this.
- jzwinck 3y ago
  The UK's National Rail used to have a "4 for 2" offer. Four people could travel together with a 50% discount if booked in advance. One day our friend was ill but three of us weren't going to miss the only sunny day of British summer so we went without him. The ticket agent on the train was quite insistent that we were breaking the rules...and I guess in some sense we were, as the tickets did say four people had to travel together. We ended up with a "One time courtesy exception" so we could continue our journey. National Rail later revised the program to a 33% discount for groups of 3 or more.
jwilber 3y ago
“… taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father. That’s all because when he checked in at the ticket counter, the agent saw his North Carolina drivers license, and suspect that the reservation which included a flight from Charlotte to New York was really a throwaway or ‘hidden city’ ticket. In other words, the boy was traveling to Charlotte but had booked a point beyond – in this case, New York, because it was cheaper. And they had no intention of flying all of the segments they’d booked.” Interrogated and forced to buy another ticket because he was suspected of using Skiplagged(he was, but there’s no way the agent knew). Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  > Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power. I doubt the person cared. This is probably some quota they have to hit - enforced by the company - not the person power tripping.
- klardotsh 3y ago
  Straight up, whether or not they currently do (I'm not a lawyer), antics like this one by the airline should constitute false imprisonment (or, more likely, some marginally lesser charge) with massive civil penalties (I'm fine with tens of thousands per instance as a gentle place to start). A private corporation's goons interrogating a minor in a security room over the kid using a trick to turn airline pricing tricks against the airline seems excessive. If you don't want your pricing tactics used in a way other than how you designed them, maybe design better pricing tactics that don't gouge customers, but ffs, don't lock a kid in a room over it, you absolute monsters.
  - danesparza 3y ago
    Absolutely. The first question you should ask (in no uncertain terms) is: "Am I being detained?" Even with a police officer involved. There are laws about private citizens detaining you (kidnapping laws). There are laws on how long a police officer can detain you. https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/14-detention-short-of-arrest-stop-and-frisk.html https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/14-deten...
COGlory 3y ago
How can American Airlines prove that he intended to get off at Charlotte?
- shagie 3y ago
  They can't, but they suspected it was the case. Note from the article: > The boy’s father said he booked the ticket using Skiplagged, which helps find such throwaway options, but he didn’t know that airlines frowned on this. The dad always books with Skiplagged, and has for years, but the child had never even traveled alone before. The boy was on his own and confessed. The family (and account used to purchase the tickets) was likely red flagged. This is harder to catch if you don't check in with a person (using a kiosk or app), but it is easy to imagine that there's a note on the account in the checkin screen for the employee to see... which an unaccompanied minor would need to use. If any luggage was asked to only be checked through Charlotte, then that raises additional red flags. The airline likely needs to do some due diligence. The individual is an unaccompanied minor flying. Imagine what they airline would need to do if he didn't get on the connecting flight to New York. That said - it would likely have been caught in Charlotte as the unaccompanied minor is escorted to the next flight and ended up much the same way. https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unaccompanied-minors.jsp https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unacc... • Unaccompanied minor service optional, service fee still applies • Gate escort and guardian contact required
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > If any luggage was asked to only be checked through Charlotte, then that raises additional red flags. If you're skiplagging, no checked bags. Carry-on/backpack only. The airlines won't let you do that.
    - peoplearepeople 3y ago
      It depends, if you're going through quarantine/international you sometimes have to pick up your bags and then re-check them. For example, flying SYD to SFO via LAX.
rdtsc 3y ago
> The passenger has reportedly received a 3 year ban from the airline. I wouldn't be surprised if some major airlines would have a shared banned passenger database. Something like a no-fly list but for people who broke various fine-print airline rules. He might find himself not being able to fly on any airline for 3 years.
damnesian 3y ago
It never occurred to me that we've been victims of surge pricing long before it became the new hip way to rake in bonus cash thanks to the example of Uber. Air travel has always been this shell game. Travel from point A to point B should be the same, no matter what, no matter when. This would render all of this trouble- the suspicion, the workarounds, the enforcement- moot.
- flatline 3y ago
  Why should prices be the same? Airlines are private companies in an already heavily regulated industry with thin margins and high operational costs. It may be nice to have something more like public air transit, but we can’t even figure that out consistently for ground travel.
  - baseballdork 3y ago
    I don't know about being priced the same, but certainly I shouldn't be penalized for _not_ taking an extra seat on another flight, right? The nonsense that makes hidden city viable should be banned.
    - itake 3y ago
      Also, airlines over sell flights as part of their pricing model. Passengers are penalized for using their tickets too.
  - floomk 3y ago
    > but we can’t even figure that out consistently for ground travel Well, the US seemingly can't.
    - samstave 3y ago
      Exactly, the one thing I oft think is when I hear about some metro, such as bart, or MUNI, or some other big-USA-city-metro woes, like NYC subway etc... complain that they need more money to handle efficiencies or some stupid shit ; I always think that every single USA-based transit administrator, or even train conductor, should be forced to do an internship in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong-kong, shanghai beijing etc... You want to know what VALUE YOU SHOULD BE _PROVIDING_ then go find a rail/transit system that fn works, is clean, is on time, isnt a crippling financial bullshit on the people... go do some transits in these countries to see what a shameful position USA is in this regard. And you - specifically and personally who work for these transit orgs in the US and are too stupid to even see the simple truth of how Fd the US is in this regard.
inpdx 3y ago
I'm banning them as an airline I'll consider. This is awful corporate behavior.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  You won't be left with many. United has fined repeat skiplaggers. Lufthansa sued some.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    "Fined"? I'd love to see the remotely actionable, deeply buried contract of carriage that it can be claimed I knowingly consented to that allows this. While their Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html) covers this in Rules 6J and 6K, the closest that they have any means of financial redress is 6.K.5: > Assess the Passenger any amounts owed to UA, including but not limited to for seat blocking, for the actual value of the service or ancillary product, and for the full value of a Ticket, which shall be the difference between the lowest fare applicable to the Passenger’s actual itinerary and the fare actually paid, including after the transportation or service have been provided. Which at most would entitle them to try to charge him for the difference for the direct flight, but even then (IANAL) seems like there's substantial room for argument, if you tried to push back.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      > try to charge him for the difference for the direct flight Yes, that was the fine. https://nomascoach.boardingarea.com/travel/united-airlines-threatens-skiplagged-clients-with-collections/ https://nomascoach.boardingarea.com/travel/united-airlines-t... > Such conduct constitutes fraud and a violation of Rule 6 of United’s Contract of Carriage. Accordingly, United demands that you cease and desist these unauthorized practices immediately and that you reimburse United in the amount of $3,236.76 which represents the difference between the cost of the tickets that you purchased and the cost of the travel taken, within 10 business day of receipt of this letter. I don't know if they managed to collect on it.
maerF0x0 3y ago
> Plus, you can only book these one way because if you throw away anything other than the last flight in your itinerary the rest of the trip gets cancelled. Engineer in me twitched. You can fly any prefix of flights, and drop any suffix. :)
throwaway5959 3y ago
There are worse things in the world than getting^H^H^H having to avoid American Airlines for three years.
- sounds 3y ago
  Couldn't agree more. https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-passenger-dragged-off-flight-for-refusing-to-change-seats/ https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-passenger-drag... Here's United Express for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Express_passenger_removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Express_passenger_... Lufthansa busted for "losing" checked bags when the checked bags had airtags - the customer told Lufthansa exactly where to look. Lufthansa banned airtags and then reversed course: https://www.macworld.com/article/1347964/lufthansa-airtags-ban-luggage-flights.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1347964/lufthansa-airtags-b...
  - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
    Most airlines are truly awful. It's pushed me towards budget ones for domestic flights (Southwest, Frontier, Spirit, etc) because at least they're upfront with "Yeah, we suck, but we'll charge you half the fare". Flying internationally, KLM has never done me wrong (I suspect the average Dutch man being 6ft tall helps seat sizing) and I recently had a rather pleasant flight on Turkish Airways.
- mschout 3y ago
  Unless you live in Dallas/Fort Worth where American has a strangle hold on the flights out of here. You basically have very few other options.
zugi 3y ago
> Plus, you can only book these one way because if you throw away anything other than the last flight in your itinerary the rest of the trip gets cancelled. I did the round trip once - well 3/4 trip anyway - back when I was a poor student. I woke up really early to board a bus for a 3 hour drive to a faraway city, where I then boarded a plane that less than an hour later had me back in my originating city (the airline's main "hub.") There I changed flights and continued on to my destination. On the return segment days later, however, I left at the midpoint and went home. This cost several hundred dollars less than the more direct alternative. Airlines tend to overcharge at their hub cities because they face little competition. I don't see this as a moral quandary either way, it's more like counting cards at Blackjack: the casinos don't want you to do it but it's not illegal, so if you can do it successfully, great. But if you get caught you have to pay the price.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  How do you not get caught? Surely they notice when you are not on the last flight?
  - zugi 3y ago
    I mean I do feel a little bad in retrospect, there was probably some gate agent announcing "last call for passenger 'zugi'", and then they finally closed the doors and took off. I was sitting at home by then. There are hundreds of reasons why passengers miss flights, so I'm not sure how I'd get "caught".
    - thebruce87m 3y ago
      I suppose there is no obligation for either party to follow up after the fact, and even so you could give a “legitimate” reason - although if it’s in the contract I wonder what legitimate reason they would deem ok?
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    There are quite a few legitimate reasons you might miss a flight leg. The folks that get caught doing this tend to get caught only after doing it repeatedly.
bastawhiz 3y ago
> Flying to Charlotte instead of New York, at a cheaper price, is stealing. This is perversion of morality at its peak. Just because the airline prices the direct flights higher than an indirect flight through a connection doesn't mean you're stealing. To suggest that the airline's right to profit (from a practice of questionable ethics) outweighs my right as a consumer to leave the airport and cancel the rest of my trip is outrageous. To call this "stealing" as though you're taking the property of the airline. Nothing is "stolen" here. If I go to a restaurant and pay for a three course meal, but decide I'm full after two courses, the restaurant can't sue me for not eating a third plate. The kid in this article wasn't even in violation of a contract: just because he intended to leave the airport doesn't mean he'd violated a contract yet. I can't even imagine how the airline would take action against a passenger for this. Talk about thoughtcrime.
- JackFr 3y ago
  It isn't stealing per se, but it is a violation of the agreement you made with the airline, and it is within their rights to terminate the rest of the contract and ban the customer. Your second point is the more important one, and to my mind, the reason they call a lawyer. The kid hadn't done anything yet. The appropriate response from the gate agent should have been to remind the kid that not travelling to the booked destination was a violation of the terms of carriage and might result in additional fees.
  - barnabee 3y ago
    > it is within their rights to terminate the rest of the contract and ban the customer It should not be. Any reasonable society would make such contracts/terms illegal and unenforcable. Citizens need to be given primacy over corporations.
  - quantified 3y ago
    Didn't the father make the agreement, not the son? And the passenger is identified as a "teenager". Which could be of age 18+ or 17-. If younger than 18, they can't legally enter a contract anyway. But they've learned a valuable lesson in the adversarial relation between most corporations and the "consumer". The agreement has little to do with the basics of paying for something and still not using it. Like many TOS and EULAs.
can16358p 3y ago
This is beyond nonsense. How is having a contract that something less costs more even legal? There should be rules that make it illegal to force contracts where they can charge more for less. If I want to take the risk of reroutes, or want to cancel midroute in transit, that should me my right. Anything beyond that is ridiculous.
ArjenM 3y ago
Hopefully they'll never catch on to the VPNing to cheaper locations when buying tickets. Air travel is such a mess on every level.
mitchdoogle 3y ago
Seems like we need some legislation to prevent airlines from price gouging direct flights. Any flight that includes a stopover in a city should not be cheaper than flying to that city nonstop.
joker_minmax 3y ago
I try to avoid American Airlines like the plague at this point honestly. Last few flights I've had with them the landing was so rough it practically threw my back out. I've not had that problem with other airlines. It's like AA can't afford wheels. Doesn't surprise me they're doing insane stuff like this too.
Incipient 3y ago
But government intervention is socialism! Or...but free market is the most optimal! Or...whatever other flawed argument. The US continues to prove corporations (and people) cannot be trusted. Governments and regulations are there to protect people.
dxbydt 3y ago
Ah! Fare arbitrage surfaces again! Quoting below - "when one individual is traveling from Millbrae station, a suburb south of San Francisco, to Embarcadero station which is downtown San Francisco, and at the same time a second individual is traveling from Glen Park station, a residential area in San Francisco,to Berkeley station. The two tickets cost (according to 2014 fare chart) $4.50 and $4.20 respectively. But if during the segment between Glen Park station and Embarcadero station the two travelers agree to exchange their tickets the cost becomes $5.10 and $1.85. So from a total cost of $8.70 a simple ticket swap saves $1.75 or 20% " Someday I might write about the amount of light and fury generated by the paragraph above.
gymbeaux 3y ago
This, from an airline that has declared bankruptcy twice in the past decade. The audacity of modern American corporations is best observed through airlines. United Airlines begged for (and received) stimulus during COVID after it blew literally all of its cash on stock buybacks in the year or two prior.

76 points by georgecmu 3y ago

I would love to know of another service or product where NOT using the product results in being detained. Airlines sound more and more like a cartel than anything these days.

hindsightbias 3y ago
Detained is his drama fathers word. There’s no evidence he was forced or dragged somewhere. They wanted to question him, probably in a private area. He wasn’t getting on any of their flights w/o answering so he went along with it.
- photonerd 3y ago
  > They wanted to question him, probably in a private area. That’s literally detaining him, so I am not sure what you’re objecting to here.
  - boring_twenties 3y ago
    Literally not. If he complied voluntarily whilst having the option to leave, that's the exact opposite of detaining him.
    - cjbgkagh 3y ago
      He doesn’t have to comply, he could have simply walked to his destination instead of flying
    - axus 3y ago
      The article isn't clear if he complied voluntarily. Was breaking their handhold and dashing out of the airport into a taxi-cab his other option?
      - boring_twenties 3y ago
        IANAL but I think unless you are arrested, a handhold in and of itself would be illegal?
    - jerf 3y ago
      "Voluntarily" may be doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. People are often not fully aware of what they can and can not refuse to do. Airports have gotten a lot more complicated on that front in the last 20 years.
    - Tronno 3y ago
      Depending on the age of the child, they may not be able to legally consent to whatever happened, especially if coercion was involved. I suggest giving the victim some leeway here, given that so many airlines have a track record of passenger abuse.
    - mock-possum 3y ago
      He’s a teenager squaring up with security guards - there’s a power imbalance there that bears consideration imo
    - sonicshadow 3y ago
      Do you think there's a situation in an airport, of all places, where you refusing to comply with a security guard's orders goes well for you? I comply with everything an airport official says because a) I'm brown and b) I'm at the airport to go on a flight, not argue with some power-tripping douche.
      - boring_twenties 3y ago
        I think an airport is probably one of the least worst places: a very public place with lots of witnesses and cameras, plus its own relatively relaxed police force. If you have a flight to catch, of course, the calculus changes but once that becomes a lost cause, all bets are off.
        sonicshadow 3y ago
        So more cameras to catch you slipping up once or thinking you have the "right" to do something, when in reality you don't because it's an airport. If I miss my flight I'm more motivated to catch the next one, not test my available civil liberties in front of poorly-paid ex-military. Best case you end up detained (in the real sense) for a long time and potentially acquitted in court, months later and having incurred plenty of mental trauma. Worst case you just go to jail. Sounds like a lose-lose
    - public_defender 3y ago
      https://xkcd.com/538/ https://xkcd.com/538/ Ha. Ha. Suddenly everyone's an expert in what constitutes detention. There's actually a big difference between "literally not detaining" someone and not detaining someone. I think the detention naysayers in this thread have failed to consider that the people who practice this type of behavior are experts. Frequently the whole business of these interrogators is to make sure that someone is "not literally" detained, but that they are in fact detained, in the sense that they do not feel free to leave. In this way, the interrogator has not committed a crime or malfeasance by falsely detaining a person, but they isolate them and make them feel as though they need to answer questions. The worst part is that there is almost no clear coaching for how a person is supposed to get through this type of situation. With the police, we can give clear advice: (1) ask "am I being detained or am I free to leave?" (2) Refuse to engage in conversation; (3) Ask for a lawyer. But these aren't police. They will tell you that you are not being detained. They have a few hundred dollars of your money and maybe a bunch of your clothes, and they just need you to answer a few questions before you get on the plane. What are you going to say? "I refuse to answer questions without a lawyer"? "I refuse to remain in this tiny office answering questions"? Ok. Great. You're banned, and maybe turned over to TSA for a real custodial interrogation for acting so suspiciously at an airport. Anyway, all this to say that your word games with "literally" this and that are not clever because this is actually much worse than a real custodial interrogation because the rights and obligations are much less clear and that lack of clarity accrues to the corporation's advantage.
      - sonicshadow 3y ago
        Thank you, I was waiting for someone to clarify the word "detain". You're right this is more nefarious than an official police detention
      - boring_twenties 3y ago
        If they are airline employees and not cops I'm not aware of any way they can detain you, short of a citizen's arrest which usually requires them to have observed you committing a felony? In this case I would just declare that I'm leaving and if any resistance, demand the real cops be called or call them yourself. Same if they refuse to return your cash and/or luggage.
  - bobbean 3y ago
    It's literally not. That's the definition of an interview
    - photonerd 3y ago
      They forced him to officially stay in a place & be questioned or he was going to be removed & deprived of something he legally purchased. That’s detainment by coercion at least.
- boeingUH60 3y ago
  I agree with you on this. The issue is that people want to get outraged at any little thing nowadays out of self-righteousness.
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - mitchdoogle 3y ago
    Intimidating and scaring people before they have done anything is worthy of outrage. That should not be acceptable at airports anywhere. And that's before you even consider that what the kid was trying to do was not unethical, so receiving any punishment whatsoever is outrageous.
- jackmott42 3y ago
  [flagged]
- sonicshadow 3y ago
  Alright the first paragraph: > A teen traveling solo for the first time from Gainesville, Florida to Charlotte was taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father. What is your definition of "detained"?
  - awb 3y ago
    Private companies have no legal right to detain anyone. They probably intimidated him into coming with them and he agreed / complied.
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    detained: to hold or keep in or as if in custody > according to the boy’s father Who wasn’t present. The airline may have asked nicely and the son complied and never tried or asked to leave. That’s not being detained. We will probably only know the details if this goes to court and it comes out or if video of the interaction is released.
    - sonicshadow 3y ago
      I guess the burden of proof lies with the person writing the story, so if you want to believe it's all wrong then go ahead.
      - LeafItAlone 3y ago
        This entire article is based off the word of the father who has supposedly been flying with Skiplagged for over five years and somehow didn’t know that the airlines didn’t look favorably on it. That makes me just a little suspicious, since the time I heard of it my first question was “is this allowed”.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      If the boy is an underage teen, then it would also be illegal to interrogate him without the presence of a guardian. If I am going about my business, but you request that I stop what I'm doing to follow you to have a chat, you are detaining me. period. you pussyfooting around this like it's not is just disingenuous at best
- mitchdoogle 3y ago
  It seems to me like the kid thought he didn't have a choice but to go with them. That would be forcing him. If it was typical security/police talk, it probably went something like, "You need to come with us. We need to ask you a few questions". I'd guess most teenagers would be too intimidated and scared to do anything else. If they didn't specifically inform him that he didn't have to go with them or answer their questions, then it sounds like he was detained
awb 3y ago
The airline’s position is that it’s a contract. When you buy the ticket you agree in the T&C not to game the system. The other way to fix it would be to charge every leg at direct flight prices and then offer a rebate for completing your full itinerary.
- klardotsh 3y ago
  The correct way to fix it is for every leg offered by an airline to be priced comparably, with the per-leg pricings transparently displayed to customers as part of the booking process, such that skiplagging is no longer a necessary tactic to avoid getting gouged by the airline cartels. But since that might cost these businesses some money, there's limited legislative pressure to force them to do the right things.
- mcv 3y ago
  I don't understand the logic behind charging less for two legs than for just one. That sounds incredibly shady to me, and for an airline to be able to enforce it like this should definitely be illegal. It sounds like abuse of market power, rather than an honest supply-demand with an eye on their costs, thing. They try to extort more for the shorter trip due to artificial scarcity.
  - awb 3y ago
    It is a supply and demand effect. Prices aren’t generated based on a fixed markup over costs. It’s way more expensive to fly into smaller regional hubs like Charlotte because the supply of airlines that want to maintain a presence there is smaller than a national hub like New York City. That’s how you get these upstart airlines that take over a corner of the US when the prices get too high. Then the big airlines drop their prices to compete because the supply went up.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    It is abuse of market power. They are trying to extract monopoly rents out of people that need to be in Charlotte because they dominate that airport. They can’t do that in NYC because of heavy competition. There are effectively four major airlines. That’s just not nearly enough to avoid anti-competitive bullshit like this.
jzwinck 3y ago
The UK's National Rail used to have a "4 for 2" offer. Four people could travel together with a 50% discount if booked in advance. One day our friend was ill but three of us weren't going to miss the only sunny day of British summer so we went without him. The ticket agent on the train was quite insistent that we were breaking the rules...and I guess in some sense we were, as the tickets did say four people had to travel together. We ended up with a "One time courtesy exception" so we could continue our journey. National Rail later revised the program to a 33% discount for groups of 3 or more.

jwilber 3y ago

“… taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father. That’s all because when he checked in at the ticket counter, the agent saw his North Carolina drivers license, and suspect that the reservation which included a flight from Charlotte to New York was really a throwaway or ‘hidden city’ ticket. In other words, the boy was traveling to Charlotte but had booked a point beyond – in this case, New York, because it was cheaper. And they had no intention of flying all of the segments they’d booked.” Interrogated and forced to buy another ticket because he was suspected of using Skiplagged(he was, but there’s no way the agent knew). Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
> Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power. I doubt the person cared. This is probably some quota they have to hit - enforced by the company - not the person power tripping.
klardotsh 3y ago
Straight up, whether or not they currently do (I'm not a lawyer), antics like this one by the airline should constitute false imprisonment (or, more likely, some marginally lesser charge) with massive civil penalties (I'm fine with tens of thousands per instance as a gentle place to start). A private corporation's goons interrogating a minor in a security room over the kid using a trick to turn airline pricing tricks against the airline seems excessive. If you don't want your pricing tactics used in a way other than how you designed them, maybe design better pricing tactics that don't gouge customers, but ffs, don't lock a kid in a room over it, you absolute monsters.
- danesparza 3y ago
  Absolutely. The first question you should ask (in no uncertain terms) is: "Am I being detained?" Even with a police officer involved. There are laws about private citizens detaining you (kidnapping laws). There are laws on how long a police officer can detain you. https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/14-detention-short-of-arrest-stop-and-frisk.html https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/14-deten...

COGlory 3y ago

How can American Airlines prove that he intended to get off at Charlotte?

shagie 3y ago
They can't, but they suspected it was the case. Note from the article: > The boy’s father said he booked the ticket using Skiplagged, which helps find such throwaway options, but he didn’t know that airlines frowned on this. The dad always books with Skiplagged, and has for years, but the child had never even traveled alone before. The boy was on his own and confessed. The family (and account used to purchase the tickets) was likely red flagged. This is harder to catch if you don't check in with a person (using a kiosk or app), but it is easy to imagine that there's a note on the account in the checkin screen for the employee to see... which an unaccompanied minor would need to use. If any luggage was asked to only be checked through Charlotte, then that raises additional red flags. The airline likely needs to do some due diligence. The individual is an unaccompanied minor flying. Imagine what they airline would need to do if he didn't get on the connecting flight to New York. That said - it would likely have been caught in Charlotte as the unaccompanied minor is escorted to the next flight and ended up much the same way. https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unaccompanied-minors.jsp https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/special-assistance/unacc... • Unaccompanied minor service optional, service fee still applies • Gate escort and guardian contact required
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > If any luggage was asked to only be checked through Charlotte, then that raises additional red flags. If you're skiplagging, no checked bags. Carry-on/backpack only. The airlines won't let you do that.
  - peoplearepeople 3y ago
    It depends, if you're going through quarantine/international you sometimes have to pick up your bags and then re-check them. For example, flying SYD to SFO via LAX.

rdtsc 3y ago

> The passenger has reportedly received a 3 year ban from the airline. I wouldn't be surprised if some major airlines would have a shared banned passenger database. Something like a no-fly list but for people who broke various fine-print airline rules. He might find himself not being able to fly on any airline for 3 years.

damnesian 3y ago

It never occurred to me that we've been victims of surge pricing long before it became the new hip way to rake in bonus cash thanks to the example of Uber. Air travel has always been this shell game. Travel from point A to point B should be the same, no matter what, no matter when. This would render all of this trouble- the suspicion, the workarounds, the enforcement- moot.

flatline 3y ago
Why should prices be the same? Airlines are private companies in an already heavily regulated industry with thin margins and high operational costs. It may be nice to have something more like public air transit, but we can’t even figure that out consistently for ground travel.
- baseballdork 3y ago
  I don't know about being priced the same, but certainly I shouldn't be penalized for _not_ taking an extra seat on another flight, right? The nonsense that makes hidden city viable should be banned.
  - itake 3y ago
    Also, airlines over sell flights as part of their pricing model. Passengers are penalized for using their tickets too.
- floomk 3y ago
  > but we can’t even figure that out consistently for ground travel Well, the US seemingly can't.
  - samstave 3y ago
    Exactly, the one thing I oft think is when I hear about some metro, such as bart, or MUNI, or some other big-USA-city-metro woes, like NYC subway etc... complain that they need more money to handle efficiencies or some stupid shit ; I always think that every single USA-based transit administrator, or even train conductor, should be forced to do an internship in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong-kong, shanghai beijing etc... You want to know what VALUE YOU SHOULD BE _PROVIDING_ then go find a rail/transit system that fn works, is clean, is on time, isnt a crippling financial bullshit on the people... go do some transits in these countries to see what a shameful position USA is in this regard. And you - specifically and personally who work for these transit orgs in the US and are too stupid to even see the simple truth of how Fd the US is in this regard.

inpdx 3y ago

I'm banning them as an airline I'll consider. This is awful corporate behavior.

ceejayoz 3y ago
You won't be left with many. United has fined repeat skiplaggers. Lufthansa sued some.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  "Fined"? I'd love to see the remotely actionable, deeply buried contract of carriage that it can be claimed I knowingly consented to that allows this. While their Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html) covers this in Rules 6J and 6K, the closest that they have any means of financial redress is 6.K.5: > Assess the Passenger any amounts owed to UA, including but not limited to for seat blocking, for the actual value of the service or ancillary product, and for the full value of a Ticket, which shall be the difference between the lowest fare applicable to the Passenger’s actual itinerary and the fare actually paid, including after the transportation or service have been provided. Which at most would entitle them to try to charge him for the difference for the direct flight, but even then (IANAL) seems like there's substantial room for argument, if you tried to push back.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > try to charge him for the difference for the direct flight Yes, that was the fine. https://nomascoach.boardingarea.com/travel/united-airlines-threatens-skiplagged-clients-with-collections/ https://nomascoach.boardingarea.com/travel/united-airlines-t... > Such conduct constitutes fraud and a violation of Rule 6 of United’s Contract of Carriage. Accordingly, United demands that you cease and desist these unauthorized practices immediately and that you reimburse United in the amount of $3,236.76 which represents the difference between the cost of the tickets that you purchased and the cost of the travel taken, within 10 business day of receipt of this letter. I don't know if they managed to collect on it.

maerF0x0 3y ago

> Plus, you can only book these one way because if you throw away anything other than the last flight in your itinerary the rest of the trip gets cancelled. Engineer in me twitched. You can fly any prefix of flights, and drop any suffix. :)

throwaway5959 3y ago

There are worse things in the world than getting^H^H^H having to avoid American Airlines for three years.

sounds 3y ago
Couldn't agree more. https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-passenger-dragged-off-flight-for-refusing-to-change-seats/ https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-passenger-drag... Here's United Express for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Express_passenger_removal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Express_passenger_... Lufthansa busted for "losing" checked bags when the checked bags had airtags - the customer told Lufthansa exactly where to look. Lufthansa banned airtags and then reversed course: https://www.macworld.com/article/1347964/lufthansa-airtags-ban-luggage-flights.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1347964/lufthansa-airtags-b...
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  Most airlines are truly awful. It's pushed me towards budget ones for domestic flights (Southwest, Frontier, Spirit, etc) because at least they're upfront with "Yeah, we suck, but we'll charge you half the fare". Flying internationally, KLM has never done me wrong (I suspect the average Dutch man being 6ft tall helps seat sizing) and I recently had a rather pleasant flight on Turkish Airways.
mschout 3y ago
Unless you live in Dallas/Fort Worth where American has a strangle hold on the flights out of here. You basically have very few other options.

zugi 3y ago

> Plus, you can only book these one way because if you throw away anything other than the last flight in your itinerary the rest of the trip gets cancelled. I did the round trip once - well 3/4 trip anyway - back when I was a poor student. I woke up really early to board a bus for a 3 hour drive to a faraway city, where I then boarded a plane that less than an hour later had me back in my originating city (the airline's main "hub.") There I changed flights and continued on to my destination. On the return segment days later, however, I left at the midpoint and went home. This cost several hundred dollars less than the more direct alternative. Airlines tend to overcharge at their hub cities because they face little competition. I don't see this as a moral quandary either way, it's more like counting cards at Blackjack: the casinos don't want you to do it but it's not illegal, so if you can do it successfully, great. But if you get caught you have to pay the price.

thebruce87m 3y ago
How do you not get caught? Surely they notice when you are not on the last flight?
- zugi 3y ago
  I mean I do feel a little bad in retrospect, there was probably some gate agent announcing "last call for passenger 'zugi'", and then they finally closed the doors and took off. I was sitting at home by then. There are hundreds of reasons why passengers miss flights, so I'm not sure how I'd get "caught".
  - thebruce87m 3y ago
    I suppose there is no obligation for either party to follow up after the fact, and even so you could give a “legitimate” reason - although if it’s in the contract I wonder what legitimate reason they would deem ok?
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  There are quite a few legitimate reasons you might miss a flight leg. The folks that get caught doing this tend to get caught only after doing it repeatedly.

bastawhiz 3y ago

> Flying to Charlotte instead of New York, at a cheaper price, is stealing. This is perversion of morality at its peak. Just because the airline prices the direct flights higher than an indirect flight through a connection doesn't mean you're stealing. To suggest that the airline's right to profit (from a practice of questionable ethics) outweighs my right as a consumer to leave the airport and cancel the rest of my trip is outrageous. To call this "stealing" as though you're taking the property of the airline. Nothing is "stolen" here. If I go to a restaurant and pay for a three course meal, but decide I'm full after two courses, the restaurant can't sue me for not eating a third plate. The kid in this article wasn't even in violation of a contract: just because he intended to leave the airport doesn't mean he'd violated a contract yet. I can't even imagine how the airline would take action against a passenger for this. Talk about thoughtcrime.

JackFr 3y ago
It isn't stealing per se, but it is a violation of the agreement you made with the airline, and it is within their rights to terminate the rest of the contract and ban the customer. Your second point is the more important one, and to my mind, the reason they call a lawyer. The kid hadn't done anything yet. The appropriate response from the gate agent should have been to remind the kid that not travelling to the booked destination was a violation of the terms of carriage and might result in additional fees.
- barnabee 3y ago
  > it is within their rights to terminate the rest of the contract and ban the customer It should not be. Any reasonable society would make such contracts/terms illegal and unenforcable. Citizens need to be given primacy over corporations.
- quantified 3y ago
  Didn't the father make the agreement, not the son? And the passenger is identified as a "teenager". Which could be of age 18+ or 17-. If younger than 18, they can't legally enter a contract anyway. But they've learned a valuable lesson in the adversarial relation between most corporations and the "consumer". The agreement has little to do with the basics of paying for something and still not using it. Like many TOS and EULAs.

can16358p 3y ago

This is beyond nonsense. How is having a contract that something less costs more even legal? There should be rules that make it illegal to force contracts where they can charge more for less. If I want to take the risk of reroutes, or want to cancel midroute in transit, that should me my right. Anything beyond that is ridiculous.

ArjenM 3y ago

Hopefully they'll never catch on to the VPNing to cheaper locations when buying tickets. Air travel is such a mess on every level.

mitchdoogle 3y ago

Seems like we need some legislation to prevent airlines from price gouging direct flights. Any flight that includes a stopover in a city should not be cheaper than flying to that city nonstop.

joker_minmax 3y ago

I try to avoid American Airlines like the plague at this point honestly. Last few flights I've had with them the landing was so rough it practically threw my back out. I've not had that problem with other airlines. It's like AA can't afford wheels. Doesn't surprise me they're doing insane stuff like this too.

Incipient 3y ago

But government intervention is socialism! Or...but free market is the most optimal! Or...whatever other flawed argument. The US continues to prove corporations (and people) cannot be trusted. Governments and regulations are there to protect people.

dxbydt 3y ago

Ah! Fare arbitrage surfaces again! Quoting below - "when one individual is traveling from Millbrae station, a suburb south of San Francisco, to Embarcadero station which is downtown San Francisco, and at the same time a second individual is traveling from Glen Park station, a residential area in San Francisco,to Berkeley station. The two tickets cost (according to 2014 fare chart) $4.50 and $4.20 respectively. But if during the segment between Glen Park station and Embarcadero station the two travelers agree to exchange their tickets the cost becomes $5.10 and $1.85. So from a total cost of $8.70 a simple ticket swap saves $1.75 or 20% " Someday I might write about the amount of light and fury generated by the paragraph above.

gymbeaux 3y ago

This, from an airline that has declared bankruptcy twice in the past decade. The audacity of modern American corporations is best observed through airlines. United Airlines begged for (and received) stimulus during COVID after it blew literally all of its cash on stock buybacks in the year or two prior.