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Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

skiplagged.com

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Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#11

Post by bdonlan »

hayksaakian wrote: post #8
thescribe wrote: post #4

After reading the article, I'm kind of confused. What is the public-safety concern with this behavior?

none, it's all BS. the only real point they have is that if many people buy A-B-C tickets, their calculations will expect many physical people to be on the B-C flight. Here is a contrived situation that they might present: Aircraft are fueled to certain amounts based on the number of passengers they have. If an airplane takes off from SEA to LAX, it does not want to stop right away and land, minutes after taking off.…

Passenger (and luggage) weight makes a huge difference for fuel burn and overall weight. That said, planes that are above maximum landing weight are generally bound for a very distant destination - on an SEA - LAX leg the plane is almost certainly nowhere near full on fuel, it under the maximum landing weight from the start, and can land immediately without a problem.

If it is going for somewhere far away, however, that gives the crew plenty of time to burn extra fuel on the way by operating inefficiently (turning on the APU, flying at inefficient altitudes or airspeeds, etc), and in any case if enough passengers are missing that the fuel burn will change significantly that'd probably push it back down under the landing weight limit.

The whole circling to burn fuel or fuel dumping thing usually happens when the plane has to make an emergency or unexpected landing; here the typical scenario is that the plane is fully loaded with passengers and luggage, and has nearly-full fuel tanks for a long cross-country or international route. Shortly after takeoff, a technical issue is identified, and the plane needs to shed weight before landing to avoid damaging the landing gear and requiring a costly inspection before returning to service.

The other scenario where circling to burn fuel can happen is if there's a wet runway or other such issue that reduces braking performance. Again, though, this is mostly an issue if you have a fully loaded plane ready for a very long route.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#13

Post by Dylan16807 »

justinsb wrote: post #9
hayksaakian wrote: post #5

This sounds absurd. This is the best analogy i've come up with: A Sandwich shop sells half sandwiches at 5$ and full sandwiches at 6$ You, and a friend would both like half a sandwich. Instead of ordering two separate halves. You order only 1 full sandwich and cut it in half yourself. Now the sandwich shop is suing you because you paid $6 for one sandwich, and only ate half of it. That's instead of paying 10$ for two…

The problem with the analogy (as I see it) is that A->B->C may be 'worse than' than A->B (because place C may be undesirable), whereas that isn't true for halves of a sandwich (because it is ok to not eat the second half of a sandwich). Oh, and the airlines sell you the full sandwich for $3, but the half sandwich for $5. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's the airlines right to set their prices and try to defend…

Oh it's certainly their right to set the prices, but I wouldn't automatically say it's their right to dictate which tickets you use post-purchase.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#14

Post by bribri »

So Awesome Born in Bangladesh, Zaman grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science at age 20 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He lives in Manhattan and works at a technology start-up that he declined to name.

Zaman said Skiplagged is just a "side project."

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#15

Post by Dylan16807 »

justinsb wrote: post #2

Ignoring the merits of the lawsuit, I don't see how Skiplagged could ever be a big business. If it succeeds, it will result in its own destruction: the airlines will either eliminate hidden-city ticketing (i.e. reduce the 'hub premium') or otherwise prevent people from doing this (e.g. charge people extra if they don't complete their flight). I actually thought that airlines have always threatened to 'claw back' the…

Not every business needs to be big. If they make a profit on a flaw in the system and eventually leave the world a better place as they gracefully shut down operations, win-win.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#17

Post by jamesaguilar »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #13
justinsb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the analogy (as I see it) is that A->B->C may be 'worse than' than A->B (because place C may be undesirable), whereas that isn't true for halves of a sandwich (because it is ok to not eat the second half of a sandwich). Oh, and the airlines sell you the full sandwich for $3, but the half sandwich for $5. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's the airlines right to set their prices and try to defend…

Oh it's certainly their right to set the prices, but I wouldn't automatically say it's their right to dictate which tickets you use post-purchase.

I wonder. Do you sign any agreement that prohibits hidden city routing when you buy the ticket? If so, on an ethical level, it's not the same as the sandwich buying scenario, where you are not signing any additional agreement.

I wonder what I would do if I were the airline. Obviously the simplest thing would be to suspend the return ticket, but I suppose that the return ticket would typically be booked on a different airline. Another option would be to collaborate with other airlines to suspend return tickets, but I suppose that would be collusion and wouldn't fly with regulators. You could also try a prisoner's dilemma-y thing where future sales to a customer that has hidden city-routed in the past are marked up to fix the difference. If all airlines did this then only infrequent flyers would be able to hidden-city route. But if any airline refuses to participate, it might be tough for the business of the airlines that engaged in this practice.

Tough situation for the airlines. Not that I have too much sympathy, but I do take it into perspective that travelling is historically extremely cheap. It's a great time to be a flyer.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#18

Post by adventured »

justinsb wrote: post #2

Ignoring the merits of the lawsuit, I don't see how Skiplagged could ever be a big business. If it succeeds, it will result in its own destruction: the airlines will either eliminate hidden-city ticketing (i.e. reduce the 'hub premium') or otherwise prevent people from doing this (e.g. charge people extra if they don't complete their flight). I actually thought that airlines have always threatened to 'claw back' the…

You're presuming that skiplagged wouldn't then branch into other ticketing angles using all the publicity / usage it acquires prior to losing the original product.

TravelZoo is worth $192 million, and has $158 million in sales. Why couldn't Skiplagged enter that turf with its momentum? (in this hypothetical)

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#19

Post by meritt »

justinsb wrote: post #2

Ignoring the merits of the lawsuit, I don't see how Skiplagged could ever be a big business. If it succeeds, it will result in its own destruction: the airlines will either eliminate hidden-city ticketing (i.e. reduce the 'hub premium') or otherwise prevent people from doing this (e.g. charge people extra if they don't complete their flight). I actually thought that airlines have always threatened to 'claw back' the…

SkipLagged doesn't make any revenue, it was just a project to help consumers.

Re: Skiplagged sued by United and Orbitz

#20

Post by wirelessest »

justinsb wrote: post #2

Ignoring the merits of the lawsuit, I don't see how Skiplagged could ever be a big business. If it succeeds, it will result in its own destruction: the airlines will either eliminate hidden-city ticketing (i.e. reduce the 'hub premium') or otherwise prevent people from doing this (e.g. charge people extra if they don't complete their flight). I actually thought that airlines have always threatened to 'claw back' the…

Many companies trying to enter a market with a big markup (like travel) will do things like this. Find a differentiator, build a user base, and in the end become another comparison booking site that just passes people off to an agency for a big cut.

If you look back in the history of the big and small comparison sites, most started with (if the don't still operate) a gimmick but really are making their margins by being a step in the user's path to buying an airline ticket-- or better, a hotel reservation.

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