4 ms·

> 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 dir

> 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.
jochem9 3y ago
Conspiring to commit a murder is also illegal. Totally agree otherwise.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  Thankfully conspiring to not board a flight isn't a crime
joker_minmax 3y ago
At least in my experience a lot of airlines specifically say that buying the connecting ticket with the intention of not taking the whole flight is grounds for cancelling your purchase. That doesn't make it any less stupid, or wasteful... but it's there in print.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  Is there any legal precedent for intent to violate a contract? How do you prove that?
  - LeafItAlone 3y ago
    Yes, there is: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/anticipatory_breach https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/anticipatory_breach > How do you prove that? Possibly if one party explicitly says that they are not going to uphold their end of the contract.
    - bastawhiz 3y ago
      I feel like putting the other party in a security room and interrogating them until they tell you something you want to hear isn't exactly a valid way to "anticipate" a breach of contract.
johnea 3y ago
They have to do this, so they can justify giving giant bonuses to execs who back this kind of perversion. That's how they build up to being bailed out by "we the idiot herd" every dacade or so... Just another reason for well audited, transparent, public ownership...
xg15 3y ago
Yeah, this feels like the same thinking behind "the salary we offered you was calculated to just barely allow comfortable living in the city you applied from. So if you now work remotely and move to a cheaper city, you're stealing from us!!" Then again, that's exactly how regional distribution of media works and the reason why media are still licensed per country. It's the same insane logic, just hidden behind contract and licensing law. Oh, unless you're a company of course, then it's just arbitrage.
xg15 3y ago
Another area where it's depressingly common to treat hypothetical future profits as something a business is somehow entitled to is trade agreements: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-legal-system-lets-corportations-sue-states-ttip-icsid https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-leg...

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.

jochem9 3y ago

Conspiring to commit a murder is also illegal. Totally agree otherwise.

bastawhiz 3y ago
Thankfully conspiring to not board a flight isn't a crime

joker_minmax 3y ago

At least in my experience a lot of airlines specifically say that buying the connecting ticket with the intention of not taking the whole flight is grounds for cancelling your purchase. That doesn't make it any less stupid, or wasteful... but it's there in print.

bastawhiz 3y ago
Is there any legal precedent for intent to violate a contract? How do you prove that?
- LeafItAlone 3y ago
  Yes, there is: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/anticipatory_breach https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/anticipatory_breach > How do you prove that? Possibly if one party explicitly says that they are not going to uphold their end of the contract.
  - bastawhiz 3y ago
    I feel like putting the other party in a security room and interrogating them until they tell you something you want to hear isn't exactly a valid way to "anticipate" a breach of contract.

johnea 3y ago

They have to do this, so they can justify giving giant bonuses to execs who back this kind of perversion. That's how they build up to being bailed out by "we the idiot herd" every dacade or so... Just another reason for well audited, transparent, public ownership...

xg15 3y ago

Yeah, this feels like the same thinking behind "the salary we offered you was calculated to just barely allow comfortable living in the city you applied from. So if you now work remotely and move to a cheaper city, you're stealing from us!!" Then again, that's exactly how regional distribution of media works and the reason why media are still licensed per country. It's the same insane logic, just hidden behind contract and licensing law. Oh, unless you're a company of course, then it's just arbitrage.

xg15 3y ago

Another area where it's depressingly common to treat hypothetical future profits as something a business is somehow entitled to is trade agreements: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-legal-system-lets-corportations-sue-states-ttip-icsid https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/10/obscure-leg...