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Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

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Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#101

Post by 39896880 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #43
wongarsu wrote: post #7

> Skiplagging is not illegal, but airlines view it as a policy violation that is grounds for termination of a traveler’s entire itinerary since the airline can't sell the empty seat in the onward flight. The poor airline, unable to sell an empty seat because ... checks notes ... the seat is already sold to someone, and that person decided not to show up. Truly the horror. Just think of all the revenue the airline los…

If the airline doesn't want people doing this then stop doing ridiculous pricing.

The air travel industry is extremely competitive, and prices continue to fall after spiking due to the supply chain/ COVID chaos:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/travel-price-track...

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#102

Post by exhorresco »

39896880 wrote: post #101
insane_dreamer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the airline doesn't want people doing this then stop doing ridiculous pricing.

The air travel industry is extremely competitive, and prices continue to fall after spiking due to the supply chain/ COVID chaos: https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/travel-price-track...

Just four airlines control 80% of the airline industry — the most concentrated it’s ever been. And they’re using their power over consumers, and airports, to jack up prices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_zWxdeq8F4 Airlines’ Secret Scheme to Keep Airfare Prices High

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#103

Post by tru3_power »

blactuary wrote: post #15
wongarsu wrote: post #7

> Skiplagging is not illegal, but airlines view it as a policy violation that is grounds for termination of a traveler’s entire itinerary since the airline can't sell the empty seat in the onward flight. The poor airline, unable to sell an empty seat because ... checks notes ... the seat is already sold to someone, and that person decided not to show up. Truly the horror. Just think of all the revenue the airline los…

Yup, and since they routinely oversell flights, I have zero sympathy for them. Negative sympathy even

Yeah I was thinking while reading this- aren’t they actually allowed to sell that empty seat already since they are allowed to oversell? What do they want to do here? Triple dip?

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#104

Post by hunter2_ »

teo_zero wrote: post #86
jmward01 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The missing point in your argument though is that the people doing this didn't want to go to the destination. So if this wasn't an option, getting off before the subsidized destination, they wouldn't be flying anyway and the airline still wouldn't be getting the subsidy. I'm still not seeing any real answer how this practice can exist in a true free market and how it doesn't indicate collusion in the airline industry…

In the A->B->C example, probably the subsidy they get for B->C is so much higher than its real cost that they can use such "profit" to finance part of the first leg. If you skip the final leg, you risk spoiling their scheme to extract more-than-needed money from the government.

Even if the subsidy for B->C is not higher than the real cost at all... if they set their A->B->C ticket prices such that (revenues == expenses), and a skipped leg results in any hit to revenue (i.e. losing a subsidy of amount x) along with a reduction in expenses (i.e. less weight means less fuel of amount y), then they are going to take a loss any time x>y.

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#105

Post by hunter2_ »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #72
15155 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now they can and they do. Which is why the airlines love that the government "forces" them to check your ID. Where is this happening? On over 100 domestic flights post-9/11, I've never had an airline review my ID - only on international flights has this occurred. The TSA or their private equivalent will match your ID to a boarding pass, but even now that's going away at major airports in favor of ID scans. Regardle…

Yes there is. The airlines used to check IDs themselves. Now their computers talk to those of the TSA so the TSA effectively does this for them. In your scenario, when you fail to board Airplane B that event gets flagged. Not a huge deal but you might have a problem getting a refund. When you try to board Airplane A the fun begins. You will be stopped because the ID for that boarding pass never went through a TSA che…

I agree with most of your points, except I'm not sure about this:

> when you fail to board Airplane B that event gets flagged. Not a huge deal but you might have a problem getting a refund

The passenger would cancel that refundable B ticket right after security, before boarding begins. Or is this impossible after checking into the flight which happens before security?

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#106

Post by hakfoo »

nneonneo wrote: post #30
radpanda wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I like the idea of being hostile to the airlines so I’ve used Skiplagged to search for flights before but I’ve never found a hidden city itinerary that I actually wanted to take. I’m guessing it probably makes sense with certain airports with high fees near concentrations of wealth? E.g. maybe London->NYC costs more than London(->NYC)->Albany because NYC airports have high fees and airlines presume wealthier…

I don’t even think it’s a “wealthier clientele” thing. Some routes are literally subsidized - for example, the Essential Air Service program pays airlines to run flights to places that would otherwise be unprofitable to fly to, and due to the grants the airlines can offer the complete route for (relatively) cheap. So, for example, it might be expensive to fly New York to Chicago, but subsidized (and cheaper) to fly N…

I think due to the "nobody would run it without subsidy" nature of the Essential Air Service subsidies, the airlines themselves often pawn it off to a regional carrier wearing their skin under license (American Eagle, Delta Express, sort of thing). The traffic usually is only enough to justify a puddle-jumper that's not their core fleet or operational competency anyway.

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#107

Post by dreamcompiler »

hunter2_ wrote: post #105
dreamcompiler wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is. The airlines used to check IDs themselves. Now their computers talk to those of the TSA so the TSA effectively does this for them. In your scenario, when you fail to board Airplane B that event gets flagged. Not a huge deal but you might have a problem getting a refund. When you try to board Airplane A the fun begins. You will be stopped because the ID for that boarding pass never went through a TSA che…

I agree with most of your points, except I'm not sure about this: > when you fail to board Airplane B that event gets flagged. Not a huge deal but you might have a problem getting a refund The passenger would cancel that refundable B ticket right after security, before boarding begins. Or is this impossible after checking into the flight which happens before security?

Good question. I don't know. It likely depends on the airline's policies.

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#108

Post by friedtofu »

xethos wrote: post #47
friedtofu wrote: post #6

Important note: "skiplagging" while frowned upon and grounds for an airline banning individuals from using them; is not why skiplagged is paying AA $9.4M. From the article: Paul Yetter, an attorney for American with Yetter Coleman in Houston, told jurors during opening statements that Skiplagged is not an authorized agent of the airline yet "dresses up" its website with American's trademarks to look legitimate and fo…

Half right: > "They ordered New York-based Skiplagged to pay *$4.7 million in disgorgement from the travel site’s revenues* and another $4.7 million for copyright infringement." The fine is half trademark infringement, half for "costing" AA money through not letting them resell the seat themselves

My bad, thanks for pointing that out. IANAL and generally illiterate when it comes to lawyer-speak, but it sounds like the cost(disgorgement) was due to just being an unauthorized re-seller on top of copyright violation am I right?

The title of the article & and the article itself does make it sound like AA were awarded the money directly because of the practice of 'skiplagging'... which doesn't seem to be the case. Though it's probably the reason they were targeted in the first place as ejddhbrbrrnrn said.

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#109

Post by altairprime »

anticensor wrote: post #94
altairprime wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’d booked (H) then you would have paid more; they’re upset that you cost them the unrealized profit of P(H-X) - P(H), and also upset at the lost opportunity of selling a double-booked ticket to another passenger into your empty seat for an additional P(whatever), without having to refund you for your unused flight leg. Two profit opportunities lost for one service rendered is, to a corporation, roughly equivale…

> consumers can expect the prices of individual legs to add up to the price of a multi-leg trip — whether on plane, train, or bus — and which would fully neutralize both their complaints and the exploit. Doesn't have to be strictly equal to sum of individual legs, even a triangle inequality relationship (multi-leg combined ticket should cost no more than the sum of individual legs) would be okay.

Technically, yes, that would close the specific single loophole exploitation; but that still enables airlines to do price undercutting in a single src/dst pairing without having to offer the benefits of that discount to the folks living at one of the stops between src and dst:

P(A-B-C) = 10

P(A-B) = 15

P(B-C) = 15

It’s neither fair nor logical for people traveling from B to pay more to reach C than those traveling from A, when the flight is already stopping at B regardless. So if pricing regulation comes into effect, I don’t expect they would permit that either.

Re: Jury awards American Airline $9.4M from website behind 'skiplagging' hack

#110

Post by stogot »

tru3_power wrote: post #103
blactuary wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and since they routinely oversell flights, I have zero sympathy for them. Negative sympathy even

Yeah I was thinking while reading this- aren’t they actually allowed to sell that empty seat already since they are allowed to oversell? What do they want to do here? Triple dip?

They would give the seat to any standby, so the airlines are void of sympathy
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