3 ms·

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.

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
  The passenger asserts at booking that "I will be at the boarding gate before the plane leaves because I intend to occupy seat X on your aircraft" but that's a lie, because they have no such intention to board the aircraft. That's the fraud, and that's why it's low-grade, because people miss flights accidentally for numerous reasons, this is just a deliberate missing of a flight, and taking away resources from someone else who should have them. Although overbooking, bumping, and standby are all policies in place to deal with the inevitable missed flights, whatever their reason.
  - circuit10 3y ago
    Booking a flight and then not getting on it isn’t fraud. By this logic buying a sandwich and then not eating it should be fraud because you implied that you intended to eat it then didn’t
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      If I buy the last sandwich, then I've deprived someone else of that sandwich by purchasing it. In case you haven't noticed, seats on an aircraft are a limited resource. You make a "reservation" to declare that you intend to occupy that seat, and the corollary is that nobody else will be able to occupy it. If enough fraudsters reserve seats without using them, the airline has another problem. Say they loaded the galley with 100 peanut packets because 100 passengers promised to board, but now there's only 20 on the flight, what are we gonna do with all these peanuts? As I mentioned, airlines have plenty of policies to deal with reserved but unused seats, but you've still intentionally taken away a finite resource because you wanted to save a couple bucks.
      - blibble 3y ago
        > As I mentioned, airlines have plenty of policies to deal with reserved but unused seats the ticket on the second leg had been paid for > but you've still intentionally taken away a finite resource because you wanted to save a couple bucks. it's really going to blow your mind when you realise airlines do the reverse all the time they call it "overbooking" knowingly selling the same seat twice? sounds like "low level fraud" by your definition
tomberin 3y ago
This isn’t how any of this works. Manifests are built at boarding, visas work at entry. You are inventing problems to take the side of a corporation.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  https://youtu.be/Aq_1l316ow8 https://youtu.be/Aq_1l316ow8
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  Honestly, I didn’t read their comment as taking any sides; it’s really just descriptive of their perspective. There are good arguments for why this is fraud in a particular way and another commenter in this thread pointed out (correctly, in my opinion) that “overbooking” is a similar kind of fraud on the airlines’ part. Point being, many happenings are more nuanced than Alice wronged Bob and Bob did nothing wrong to Alice. I suspect if you read the parent comment again you may indeed find some of their points to be agreeable.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
> Solve the fare imbalance somehow, airlines! This is a pretty agreeable take except the seeming implication that any “skiplaggers” are doing something wrong. They really just (currently) play the airlines’ game better and the airlines are being over-sensitive about it. The proper solution for this would be for the airlines to fix their pricing issues rather than to intimidate random passengers into paying the “correct” amount and pretend it was the individual passenger’s fault when they committed this supposed fraud.
horns4lyfe 3y ago
Are you an airline AI? What a crock.

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
The passenger asserts at booking that "I will be at the boarding gate before the plane leaves because I intend to occupy seat X on your aircraft" but that's a lie, because they have no such intention to board the aircraft. That's the fraud, and that's why it's low-grade, because people miss flights accidentally for numerous reasons, this is just a deliberate missing of a flight, and taking away resources from someone else who should have them. Although overbooking, bumping, and standby are all policies in place to deal with the inevitable missed flights, whatever their reason.
- circuit10 3y ago
  Booking a flight and then not getting on it isn’t fraud. By this logic buying a sandwich and then not eating it should be fraud because you implied that you intended to eat it then didn’t
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    If I buy the last sandwich, then I've deprived someone else of that sandwich by purchasing it. In case you haven't noticed, seats on an aircraft are a limited resource. You make a "reservation" to declare that you intend to occupy that seat, and the corollary is that nobody else will be able to occupy it. If enough fraudsters reserve seats without using them, the airline has another problem. Say they loaded the galley with 100 peanut packets because 100 passengers promised to board, but now there's only 20 on the flight, what are we gonna do with all these peanuts? As I mentioned, airlines have plenty of policies to deal with reserved but unused seats, but you've still intentionally taken away a finite resource because you wanted to save a couple bucks.
    - blibble 3y ago
      > As I mentioned, airlines have plenty of policies to deal with reserved but unused seats the ticket on the second leg had been paid for > but you've still intentionally taken away a finite resource because you wanted to save a couple bucks. it's really going to blow your mind when you realise airlines do the reverse all the time they call it "overbooking" knowingly selling the same seat twice? sounds like "low level fraud" by your definition

tomberin 3y ago

This isn’t how any of this works. Manifests are built at boarding, visas work at entry. You are inventing problems to take the side of a corporation.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
https://youtu.be/Aq_1l316ow8 https://youtu.be/Aq_1l316ow8
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
Honestly, I didn’t read their comment as taking any sides; it’s really just descriptive of their perspective. There are good arguments for why this is fraud in a particular way and another commenter in this thread pointed out (correctly, in my opinion) that “overbooking” is a similar kind of fraud on the airlines’ part. Point being, many happenings are more nuanced than Alice wronged Bob and Bob did nothing wrong to Alice. I suspect if you read the parent comment again you may indeed find some of their points to be agreeable.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago

> Solve the fare imbalance somehow, airlines! This is a pretty agreeable take except the seeming implication that any “skiplaggers” are doing something wrong. They really just (currently) play the airlines’ game better and the airlines are being over-sensitive about it. The proper solution for this would be for the airlines to fix their pricing issues rather than to intimidate random passengers into paying the “correct” amount and pretend it was the individual passenger’s fault when they committed this supposed fraud.

horns4lyfe 3y ago

Are you an airline AI? What a crock.