2 ms·
Seems like there's a relatively simple solution for this: allow airline tickets to be resold. Apart from the fact that this restriction massively benefits airl
by usefulcat 1y ago
Seems like there's a relatively simple solution for this: allow airline tickets to be resold.
Apart from the fact that this restriction massively benefits airlines, I've never understood why it's not allowed. No matter what, you still have to go through security and present your ID there, so the additional security benefit of knowing a traveler's identity at the time of purchase seems pretty marginal.
- louthy 1y agoTicket touts on the most popular routes? No thanks!
- beeflet 1y agowhy not? let the market decide the price
- fmobus 1y agoIf resale was freely allowed, you'd get a ton of middlemen skimming the margins, i.e. arbitrating. Like we have with concert tickets now.
- bitshiftfaced 1y agoI'm imagining a website that functions like a commodity trading website that allows anyone to buy and sell tickets for a given airline/time/location. Airlines could buy back tickets if they wanted.
- usefulcat 1y agoThat only works with concerts because of severely constrained supply. There's only one Taylor Swift, and she can only perform so many times each year. Yes there's probably no shortage of artists in general, but they're not interchangeable (certainly much less so compared to airlines). The air travel market is, therefore, not nearly as constrained. I dunno, ticket reselling might not be strictly better, but it seems unlikely to be worse and at the very least it would be nice to have the option of selling your ticket if your plans change. As it is, you generally either have to pay extra in advance for that privilege, or just eat the loss. Either way it's great for the airlines, therefore not great for consumers.
- nradov 1y agoAirlines have zero financial incentive to allow ticket resales. This would only happen under some sort of government mandate.