8 ms·

Teenager detained at airport after trying to use “skiplagging” trick

73 points by pessimizer 3y ago

throw9away6 3y ago
He must have said something stupid to tsa. Or just really unlucky.
- conk 3y ago
  “We've used Skiplagged almost exclusively for the last five to eight years” Seems trivial to flag people who frequently use this trick. Or just flag based upon resident address.
  - addisonl 3y ago
    Or just allow your customers to buy your flights at the price you are (already) selling them at.
- Supermancho 3y ago
  A ticket desk noticed his Driver's License and deduced. Probably an existing policy to look out for this kind of shortcut and a brownie point awarded. Not sure why a reasonable person would turn this kid in or how it would otherwise be discovered.
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    Ticket desk? What decade are we talking about? The only ticket desk is if you check bags everyone else has a printed boarding pass you go straight to tsa. The folks at the airplane gate don’t look at id and are rushing everyone in.
    - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
      He was an unaccompanied minor, and airlines require travelers that age who are traveling alone to check in with their unaccompanied minor service.
      - devilbunny 3y ago
        > He was an unaccompanied minor Doesn't say that in the article, and he had a state-issued ID. Now, perhaps he had one just for this, but I could believe the kid is 15 years old, which means he isn't an "unaccompanied minor" in airline terms. And if it was a driver's license (as reported in other outlets, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't fact-check that detail), he'd have to be 16 to have one. Do you have another source for this? I'd love to be wrong.
    - Supermancho 3y ago
      > Then Logan got to the gate for check-in > The folks at the airplane gate don’t look at id You are simply incorrect. Modern airports are full of kiosks that require you to show an ID before they will give out any information (call it what you will, I call it a ticket desk, since they can usually print you boarding passes). Since you didn't read the article carefully and clearly don't know how airports work in this age, it's really up to you to be outraged at phantoms.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - gruez 3y ago
      >Ticket desk? What decade are we talking about? The only ticket desk is if you check bags everyone else has a printed boarding pass Apparently not everyone. Every time I'm at the airport near the check in area, the "check in" line is many times longer than the "baggage drop" line.
realitythreek 3y ago
How was this legal? Missing a connecting flight means you’re detained and forced to buy a new ticket? Dispute that charge for not providing service as paid for.
- pylua 3y ago
  Right how is that not kidnapping ?
- hayd 3y ago
  "Dispute that charge" they refunded the ticket. There really needs to be punitive damages. That prices are higher for a partial flight is the criminal aspect here.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  One clarification - he wasn't detained in Charlotte, he was questioned in Florida before he got on the first leg of his flight. The gate agents then canceled his full itinerary and made him buy a full fair ticket to Charlotte. The reason this happened is because adults intimidated a child. If it were me, I would have told them to fuck off, sure that I was planning to go to NYC, and oh crap I'd unexpectedly get food poisoning in Charlotte and had to stay there. Airlines are trying to have their cake and eat it, too, with their BS fare games. If they don't want people "skiplagging" they should price their tickets accordingly.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
God, I despise how much bullshit corporations will try to convince the populace that something is somehow morally wrong when all it does is make them less money: 1. Even the name "skiplagging" sounds similar to the invented crime of "jaywalking" to me - jaywalking a crime famously invented by US car companies to take control of our roads. 2. "At the gate, however, Logan's North Carolina ID raised red flags with the agent and the teen was subsequently taken to a security room and interrogated, Hunter said." I would be livid if I were this kid's parents. They're trying to treat their BS way to make more money as a crime. In short, airlines are fucking around and I hope they find out.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  > the invented crime of "jaywalking" to me - jaywalking a crime famously invented by US car companies to take control of our roads That's a popular explanation, but this dictionary explanation suggests the origin isn't so sinister. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/why-is-it-called-jaywalking https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/why-is-it-call...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - notsound 3y ago
    While interesting, this is just the word's origin; the comment you're responding to is claiming that the auto industry made jaywalking a crime. That claim seems to be based in fact: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- janalsncm 3y ago
  Maybe you missed the memo, but the American hierarchy of political concern is: 1. Corporations 2. Small businesses 3. Homeowners 4. Consumers 5. If you’re not one of the above, you’re lower than dirt.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
> skiplagging.... costs airlines tens of thousands in lost revenue That's some unrealised-gain bullshit logic that would make a crypto-bro blush. Airlines cost me millions, millions I say!, per day in lost revenue because they very unfairly do not wire me 10% of their income every day as I think they should.
- 0xfedbee 3y ago
  Hahahahs
- gruez 3y ago
  >> skiplagging.... costs airlines tens of thousands in lost revenue >That's some unrealised-gain bullshit logic that would make a crypto-bro blush. I agree that the logic for equating potential lost sales as actual lost revenue is flawed, but in this case the numbers are very conservative, and thus entirely plausible. Apparently there are more than 4 billion flights per year pre pandemic[1], so "tens of thousands" (50k?) in actual losses (ie. cases where someone bought the cheaper ticket, and would have otherwise purchased the more expensive ticket) seems like an absolute certainty. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...
  - rhn_mk1 3y ago
    The people coming to the bakery this morning cost me 1k in actual losses (ie. cases where someone bought the bread directly from the bakery but would have otherwise purchased the bread from me at 3 times the price).
ajhurliman 3y ago
Actions like this are a mark of a company with excess staff. If someone is so bored that they took it upon themselves to require someone ride on a second leg of a trip, there’s probably some bloat in their org. And how are they claiming they lost money due to skip lagging? If anything they’d gain money on the smaller amount of fuel needed for the second leg because he wasn’t on it. The word kafkaesque becomes more relevant every day.
- deafpolygon 3y ago
  They count it as lost money basically by saying that since there was an empty seat on the second leg (despite the fact that it was already paid-for by ticket) - therefore counting that against potential profit. It's bullshit accounting to spin things in their favor.
NikkiA 3y ago
The family looks well off (and clearly flies a lot), so this is a tough one as to which way it'll go; probably AA will back down after a while, and then lobby/bribe congress to make it illegal.
- gruez 3y ago
  >then lobby/bribe congress to make it illegal. Why would they need to do that? It already violates the terms of carriage, which is illegal (albeit only civilly).
dbg31415 3y ago
I used this trick when I was his age! Never had any issues. Saved a bunch of money. Only way to get caught is to offer the details up. He had to have told the agents the wrong city or something like that. Anyway it’s a great trick to shave a few bucks off your flight. And let’s be honest, they would do it to you if the situation was reversed. They 100% would.
NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Come on, this is low-grade fraud, and even if airlines did not "lose money" it would still have the potential for headaches and confusion in a cascade effect. When I book an airline ticket, I'm making a contract that says "I'm paying you to transport my person and belongings from Point A to Point B to Point C with these details." Now unless I cancel or modify that reservation, the airline is expecting me to follow through, because I'm monetarily invested. What are the consequences of missing my flight? My name will be on the manifest and the airline will wonder what happened to me. They probably won't file a missing persons report, but their records will note that I had a flight but I wasn't on it. So what if I've done some "hidden city ticketing" and the aircraft on the last leg crashes? My friends and family, and first responders, might wonder where I am at that point. Was I on the flight? Did I miss it? Why would I miss the last leg of a multipoint flight? What if I am "hidden city ticketing" to another country? Isn't that going to get sticky with immigration? I mean, I fly to Spain and then Istanbul, and my airline continues on to Kazakhstan, but I'm hanging out at the Hagia Sophia. What are the Kazakhstani authorities gonna say about my visa plans or however I faked out everybody and made them believe I was going there? Isn't Turkey going to have something to say about my continued presence when I never should've left the airport? Logistically, it must really mess up the airlines' planning and operations. If people get in the habit of reserving seats they don't intend to fart in, then that's a capacity problem. Passengers gonna get bumped. Imagine a whole 737 full of "hidden city ticketer" seats that doesn't even bother departing. Yeah, I get it, passengers save money. Solve the fare imbalance somehow, airlines! Obviously if hackers are hacking you then you need a mitigation, and it's bad optics for you to detain and interrogate a script kiddie, such that he makes a headline on the Daily Fail. COVID-19 hurt us all; suck it up.
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  It's not fraud. I get what you're saying with the operational concern trying to locate an unaccompanied minor who was supposed to be at the gate and is now 'missing'. But he paid the price the airline posted for the ticket. Who got defrauded?
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
scotty79 3y ago
Why indirect flight is cheaper than direct one to the intermediate destination. This should be illegal. It's a sign of some nefarious price fixing. No explanation from the airlines should be accepted for something like that.
- balderdash 3y ago
  It’s not price fixing. It’s price discrimination. It’s not nice, but it’s a fundamental economic/pricing tenant (doesn’t excuse the airlines treatment of this boy).
CodeWriter23 3y ago
Doesn’t the airline actually save nominally on the connecting flight by not having to haul the kid’s weight and baggage? I get they don’t get the shakedown fare they want to charge but isn’t that really because they have inconsistent and unfair policies when it comes to setting fares?
- balderdash 3y ago
  In no way defending the airline’s actions here, but in theory they are trying to price discriminate. From their perspective, would have probably preferred two nonstop fares at a higher price
- netruk44 3y ago
  It's slightly more than the missed revenue from the failed shakedown. An empty seat is a seat that could have been sold to someone who paid full price. If you hadn't checked in for the flight you weren't intending to take, they could have made a bit more money.
  - CodeWriter23 3y ago
    *if the plane is full
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    And yet they were so eager to pay the passenger (in the form of a discount) to block that seat on the second leg from being used by a hypothetical other paying customer, even though the passenger being paid to sit in the seat didn't actually want to.
- qazxcvbnmlp 3y ago
  Direct flights from A->B command a premium price. The reason the airline comes out money behind is that the person did not choose the pay that premium for the direct (or less stops) flight. Generally the premium is higher than the increased cost of one more passenger on that last leg.
  - 3y ago
janalsncm 3y ago
I’m sure airlines will “solve” this “problem” by adding them to their no fly lists (or perhaps a flagged-but-not-yet-banned list). Unreliable and unruly passengers can and will be denied ticket sales. Airlines can and will share these lists amongst themselves for “safety” reasons and “to ensure the best service”.
ktosobcy 3y ago
air travel pricing is weird AF. save from the direct vs connecting flight (as in this case), long haul, intercontinental flights are quite often to and return ticket priced quite similarly (it usually makes more sense to buy return then one way...)
quags 3y ago
On more than one flight in my life they have been over booked and need people to come to the counter and take whatever they are offering. One time out of key west Florida the airlines refused to start boarding until a few passengers took another flight.
RecycledEle 3y ago
What if we made airlines price tickets rationally, so that a flight from A to B was always cheaper than a flight from A to B then from B to C? I'm sorry. I forgot who pays the bribes to Congress.
- gruez 3y ago
  > What if we made airlines price tickets rationally, so that a flight from A to B was always cheaper than a flight from A to B then from B to C? It's entirely "rational" when you factor in price discrimination.
  - jameson71 3y ago
    And if we are going to have a free market, then mooning the longer trip and getting off at your layover must be allowed
popilewiz 3y ago
[dead]
litoE 3y ago
Back in the day (I haven't checked lately) if you bought a round trip ticket from, say, LA-NY-LA, the price was significantly lower if you stayed in NY over the weekend because the airlines assumed that if you didn't stay for the weekend you were a business traveler who was writing off the expense while if you stayed over the weekend you were a cost-conscious tourist. Clever people who needed to make two closely spaced round trips would book one ticket LA-NY-LA and a second ticket NY-LA-NY. They would fly out to NY on Monday on ticket #1, return home to LA on Friday using ticket #2, go back to NY the following Monday using ticket #2 and return to LA the following Friday using the second half of ticket #1. Both tickets stayed at their mid point over a weekend, so they paid the lower fare. This was easy to do before airline security increased due to 9/11 because there were no TSA checkpoints (anyone remember when you could meet arriving passengers at the gate? and airlines didn't really check ID when boarding, so you could book the two tickets with a slight misspelling of your name and the agents at the gate would let you board.
redroyal 3y ago
Wait, this kid didn’t do anything illegal. They can’t detain him at airport security on behalf of the airline to resolve a civil matter and they definitely can’t legally force him to buy a direct ticket. He’s free to leave at any point in the trip and is certainty not obligated contractually to complete it. I’m pretty sure he can and should sue for being wrongfully detained and intimidated into paying twice for the same trip in order to set a precedent. Maybe we should even start a gofundme to help him do that
tremorscript 3y ago
I always learn something new on HN everyday :) I didn't know this practice existed before today. Now, I don't understand airline economics, but this seems to me like a pricing issue. How can a direct flight be more expensive than a connecting that is over a larger distance and so more fuel cost? Its about risks. TIL: -https://www.smartertravel.com/why-are-nonstops-more-expensive-than-connecting-flights/ https://www.smartertravel.com/why-are-nonstops-more-expensiv...
dang 3y ago
Teenager ‘taken to security room and interrogated’ for throwaway ticketing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684460 - July 2023 (151 comments)
healthyusa 3y ago
I was at 9/11. No, I don’t want passengers checking on, then never get back on.
- jameson71 3y ago
  What?

73 points by pessimizer 3y ago

throw9away6 3y ago

He must have said something stupid to tsa. Or just really unlucky.

conk 3y ago
“We've used Skiplagged almost exclusively for the last five to eight years” Seems trivial to flag people who frequently use this trick. Or just flag based upon resident address.
- addisonl 3y ago
  Or just allow your customers to buy your flights at the price you are (already) selling them at.
Supermancho 3y ago
A ticket desk noticed his Driver's License and deduced. Probably an existing policy to look out for this kind of shortcut and a brownie point awarded. Not sure why a reasonable person would turn this kid in or how it would otherwise be discovered.
- throw9away6 3y ago
  Ticket desk? What decade are we talking about? The only ticket desk is if you check bags everyone else has a printed boarding pass you go straight to tsa. The folks at the airplane gate don’t look at id and are rushing everyone in.
  - hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
    He was an unaccompanied minor, and airlines require travelers that age who are traveling alone to check in with their unaccompanied minor service.
    - devilbunny 3y ago
      > He was an unaccompanied minor Doesn't say that in the article, and he had a state-issued ID. Now, perhaps he had one just for this, but I could believe the kid is 15 years old, which means he isn't an "unaccompanied minor" in airline terms. And if it was a driver's license (as reported in other outlets, but I'm pretty sure that they didn't fact-check that detail), he'd have to be 16 to have one. Do you have another source for this? I'd love to be wrong.
  - Supermancho 3y ago
    > Then Logan got to the gate for check-in > The folks at the airplane gate don’t look at id You are simply incorrect. Modern airports are full of kiosks that require you to show an ID before they will give out any information (call it what you will, I call it a ticket desk, since they can usually print you boarding passes). Since you didn't read the article carefully and clearly don't know how airports work in this age, it's really up to you to be outraged at phantoms.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gruez 3y ago
    >Ticket desk? What decade are we talking about? The only ticket desk is if you check bags everyone else has a printed boarding pass Apparently not everyone. Every time I'm at the airport near the check in area, the "check in" line is many times longer than the "baggage drop" line.

realitythreek 3y ago

How was this legal? Missing a connecting flight means you’re detained and forced to buy a new ticket? Dispute that charge for not providing service as paid for.

pylua 3y ago
Right how is that not kidnapping ?
hayd 3y ago
"Dispute that charge" they refunded the ticket. There really needs to be punitive damages. That prices are higher for a partial flight is the criminal aspect here.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
One clarification - he wasn't detained in Charlotte, he was questioned in Florida before he got on the first leg of his flight. The gate agents then canceled his full itinerary and made him buy a full fair ticket to Charlotte. The reason this happened is because adults intimidated a child. If it were me, I would have told them to fuck off, sure that I was planning to go to NYC, and oh crap I'd unexpectedly get food poisoning in Charlotte and had to stay there. Airlines are trying to have their cake and eat it, too, with their BS fare games. If they don't want people "skiplagging" they should price their tickets accordingly.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

God, I despise how much bullshit corporations will try to convince the populace that something is somehow morally wrong when all it does is make them less money: 1. Even the name "skiplagging" sounds similar to the invented crime of "jaywalking" to me - jaywalking a crime famously invented by US car companies to take control of our roads. 2. "At the gate, however, Logan's North Carolina ID raised red flags with the agent and the teen was subsequently taken to a security room and interrogated, Hunter said." I would be livid if I were this kid's parents. They're trying to treat their BS way to make more money as a crime. In short, airlines are fucking around and I hope they find out.

rootusrootus 3y ago
> the invented crime of "jaywalking" to me - jaywalking a crime famously invented by US car companies to take control of our roads That's a popular explanation, but this dictionary explanation suggests the origin isn't so sinister. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/why-is-it-called-jaywalking https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/why-is-it-call...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- notsound 3y ago
  While interesting, this is just the word's origin; the comment you're responding to is claiming that the auto industry made jaywalking a crime. That claim seems to be based in fact: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
janalsncm 3y ago
Maybe you missed the memo, but the American hierarchy of political concern is: 1. Corporations 2. Small businesses 3. Homeowners 4. Consumers 5. If you’re not one of the above, you’re lower than dirt.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

> skiplagging.... costs airlines tens of thousands in lost revenue That's some unrealised-gain bullshit logic that would make a crypto-bro blush. Airlines cost me millions, millions I say!, per day in lost revenue because they very unfairly do not wire me 10% of their income every day as I think they should.

0xfedbee 3y ago
Hahahahs
gruez 3y ago
>> skiplagging.... costs airlines tens of thousands in lost revenue >That's some unrealised-gain bullshit logic that would make a crypto-bro blush. I agree that the logic for equating potential lost sales as actual lost revenue is flawed, but in this case the numbers are very conservative, and thus entirely plausible. Apparently there are more than 4 billion flights per year pre pandemic[1], so "tens of thousands" (50k?) in actual losses (ie. cases where someone bought the cheaper ticket, and would have otherwise purchased the more expensive ticket) seems like an absolute certainty. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-passenger-traffic-globally/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...
- rhn_mk1 3y ago
  The people coming to the bakery this morning cost me 1k in actual losses (ie. cases where someone bought the bread directly from the bakery but would have otherwise purchased the bread from me at 3 times the price).

ajhurliman 3y ago

Actions like this are a mark of a company with excess staff. If someone is so bored that they took it upon themselves to require someone ride on a second leg of a trip, there’s probably some bloat in their org. And how are they claiming they lost money due to skip lagging? If anything they’d gain money on the smaller amount of fuel needed for the second leg because he wasn’t on it. The word kafkaesque becomes more relevant every day.

deafpolygon 3y ago
They count it as lost money basically by saying that since there was an empty seat on the second leg (despite the fact that it was already paid-for by ticket) - therefore counting that against potential profit. It's bullshit accounting to spin things in their favor.

NikkiA 3y ago

The family looks well off (and clearly flies a lot), so this is a tough one as to which way it'll go; probably AA will back down after a while, and then lobby/bribe congress to make it illegal.

gruez 3y ago
>then lobby/bribe congress to make it illegal. Why would they need to do that? It already violates the terms of carriage, which is illegal (albeit only civilly).

dbg31415 3y ago

I used this trick when I was his age! Never had any issues. Saved a bunch of money. Only way to get caught is to offer the details up. He had to have told the agents the wrong city or something like that. Anyway it’s a great trick to shave a few bucks off your flight. And let’s be honest, they would do it to you if the situation was reversed. They 100% would.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

Come on, this is low-grade fraud, and even if airlines did not "lose money" it would still have the potential for headaches and confusion in a cascade effect. When I book an airline ticket, I'm making a contract that says "I'm paying you to transport my person and belongings from Point A to Point B to Point C with these details." Now unless I cancel or modify that reservation, the airline is expecting me to follow through, because I'm monetarily invested. What are the consequences of missing my flight? My name will be on the manifest and the airline will wonder what happened to me. They probably won't file a missing persons report, but their records will note that I had a flight but I wasn't on it. So what if I've done some "hidden city ticketing" and the aircraft on the last leg crashes? My friends and family, and first responders, might wonder where I am at that point. Was I on the flight? Did I miss it? Why would I miss the last leg of a multipoint flight? What if I am "hidden city ticketing" to another country? Isn't that going to get sticky with immigration? I mean, I fly to Spain and then Istanbul, and my airline continues on to Kazakhstan, but I'm hanging out at the Hagia Sophia. What are the Kazakhstani authorities gonna say about my visa plans or however I faked out everybody and made them believe I was going there? Isn't Turkey going to have something to say about my continued presence when I never should've left the airport? Logistically, it must really mess up the airlines' planning and operations. If people get in the habit of reserving seats they don't intend to fart in, then that's a capacity problem. Passengers gonna get bumped. Imagine a whole 737 full of "hidden city ticketer" seats that doesn't even bother departing. Yeah, I get it, passengers save money. Solve the fare imbalance somehow, airlines! Obviously if hackers are hacking you then you need a mitigation, and it's bad optics for you to detain and interrogate a script kiddie, such that he makes a headline on the Daily Fail. COVID-19 hurt us all; suck it up.

wildrhythms 3y ago
It's not fraud. I get what you're saying with the operational concern trying to locate an unaccompanied minor who was supposed to be at the gate and is now 'missing'. But he paid the price the airline posted for the ticket. Who got defrauded?
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago

scotty79 3y ago

Why indirect flight is cheaper than direct one to the intermediate destination. This should be illegal. It's a sign of some nefarious price fixing. No explanation from the airlines should be accepted for something like that.

balderdash 3y ago
It’s not price fixing. It’s price discrimination. It’s not nice, but it’s a fundamental economic/pricing tenant (doesn’t excuse the airlines treatment of this boy).

CodeWriter23 3y ago

Doesn’t the airline actually save nominally on the connecting flight by not having to haul the kid’s weight and baggage? I get they don’t get the shakedown fare they want to charge but isn’t that really because they have inconsistent and unfair policies when it comes to setting fares?

balderdash 3y ago
In no way defending the airline’s actions here, but in theory they are trying to price discriminate. From their perspective, would have probably preferred two nonstop fares at a higher price
netruk44 3y ago
It's slightly more than the missed revenue from the failed shakedown. An empty seat is a seat that could have been sold to someone who paid full price. If you hadn't checked in for the flight you weren't intending to take, they could have made a bit more money.
- CodeWriter23 3y ago
  *if the plane is full
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  And yet they were so eager to pay the passenger (in the form of a discount) to block that seat on the second leg from being used by a hypothetical other paying customer, even though the passenger being paid to sit in the seat didn't actually want to.
qazxcvbnmlp 3y ago
Direct flights from A->B command a premium price. The reason the airline comes out money behind is that the person did not choose the pay that premium for the direct (or less stops) flight. Generally the premium is higher than the increased cost of one more passenger on that last leg.
- 3y ago

janalsncm 3y ago

I’m sure airlines will “solve” this “problem” by adding them to their no fly lists (or perhaps a flagged-but-not-yet-banned list). Unreliable and unruly passengers can and will be denied ticket sales. Airlines can and will share these lists amongst themselves for “safety” reasons and “to ensure the best service”.

ktosobcy 3y ago

air travel pricing is weird AF. save from the direct vs connecting flight (as in this case), long haul, intercontinental flights are quite often to and return ticket priced quite similarly (it usually makes more sense to buy return then one way...)

quags 3y ago

On more than one flight in my life they have been over booked and need people to come to the counter and take whatever they are offering. One time out of key west Florida the airlines refused to start boarding until a few passengers took another flight.

RecycledEle 3y ago

What if we made airlines price tickets rationally, so that a flight from A to B was always cheaper than a flight from A to B then from B to C? I'm sorry. I forgot who pays the bribes to Congress.

gruez 3y ago
> What if we made airlines price tickets rationally, so that a flight from A to B was always cheaper than a flight from A to B then from B to C? It's entirely "rational" when you factor in price discrimination.
- jameson71 3y ago
  And if we are going to have a free market, then mooning the longer trip and getting off at your layover must be allowed

popilewiz 3y ago

[dead]

litoE 3y ago

Back in the day (I haven't checked lately) if you bought a round trip ticket from, say, LA-NY-LA, the price was significantly lower if you stayed in NY over the weekend because the airlines assumed that if you didn't stay for the weekend you were a business traveler who was writing off the expense while if you stayed over the weekend you were a cost-conscious tourist. Clever people who needed to make two closely spaced round trips would book one ticket LA-NY-LA and a second ticket NY-LA-NY. They would fly out to NY on Monday on ticket #1, return home to LA on Friday using ticket #2, go back to NY the following Monday using ticket #2 and return to LA the following Friday using the second half of ticket #1. Both tickets stayed at their mid point over a weekend, so they paid the lower fare. This was easy to do before airline security increased due to 9/11 because there were no TSA checkpoints (anyone remember when you could meet arriving passengers at the gate? and airlines didn't really check ID when boarding, so you could book the two tickets with a slight misspelling of your name and the agents at the gate would let you board.

redroyal 3y ago

Wait, this kid didn’t do anything illegal. They can’t detain him at airport security on behalf of the airline to resolve a civil matter and they definitely can’t legally force him to buy a direct ticket. He’s free to leave at any point in the trip and is certainty not obligated contractually to complete it. I’m pretty sure he can and should sue for being wrongfully detained and intimidated into paying twice for the same trip in order to set a precedent. Maybe we should even start a gofundme to help him do that

tremorscript 3y ago

I always learn something new on HN everyday :) I didn't know this practice existed before today. Now, I don't understand airline economics, but this seems to me like a pricing issue. How can a direct flight be more expensive than a connecting that is over a larger distance and so more fuel cost? Its about risks. TIL: -https://www.smartertravel.com/why-are-nonstops-more-expensive-than-connecting-flights/ https://www.smartertravel.com/why-are-nonstops-more-expensiv...

dang 3y ago

Teenager ‘taken to security room and interrogated’ for throwaway ticketing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684460 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36684460 - July 2023 (151 comments)

healthyusa 3y ago

I was at 9/11. No, I don’t want passengers checking on, then never get back on.

jameson71 3y ago
What?