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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

#51
post #2

Seems like this practice in general shows that a true free market doesn't exist in the airline industry. If it did exist then flights like these wouldn't be profitable to sell in the first place.

There are almost no industry without some regulatory restrictions on them.

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

#52
post #45
post #37

I don't understand how someone can be barred from an airline because they got a better deal on it. At a certain point there must be an individual who would've been barred from every airline due to this at which point it becomes some sort of cruel punishment on an individual from a whole industry for really doing nothing illegal or wrong or causing a nuisance. Airlines shouldn't be allowed to barr people simply for sk…

>I don't understand how someone can be barred from an airline because they got a better deal on it. Because they cause a truly stupid amount of inefficiencies and hassle with their desire to save a buck at the cost of everyone else. I think American Airlines's marketing and legal teams dropped the ball as far as how they impressed the court of public opinion, as demonstrated by this very thread. "We couldn't make mor…

Skipping a queue in traffic is an asshole thing to do, but we in a society give them the benefit of the doubt because we don't know what they're going through. It inconveniences literally everyone, yet it would be weird for the driver to be blocked from that road for doing so.

We shouldn't accept arbitrary restrictions from stupid megacorps.

I studied Aviation engineering with Pilot studies and am also a frequent flyer, idgaf if someone skiplags.

If a seat on a plane is empty it literally doesn't make a difference to my life as my ass is on another seat. If the empty seat is next to mine then actually that's amazing.

> This all causes problems for people on the ground

As much as delayed connection or missing passenger, they're trained to do this and it's their job to do so. They're not especially annoyed or insulted if it's due to skiplags. Also your assumption is that the person skiplagging checked in baggage which is beyond idiotic to do and to assume.

> logistics team scheduling

ops doesn't sit there and cry waiting for 1 single skiplagger with no checked bags. You know what the solution to this is actually? The airlines to allow it so then they are informed of no-shows beforehand. Simple.

> means the airline flies an empty seat that should have been occupied, wasting fuel

As I said before, if airlines allowed people to be open about their intentions to skiplag then that can be taken into account during W&B. Also 1 or 2 people skiplagging doesn't make a significant dent in fuel burn throughout the flight. Wait till you learn about how aircraft have enough fuel on board to divert - further wasting fuel!! Safety factors are destroying the environment!

> If you engage in skiplagging, you are sincerely a greedy fucking bastard and deserve every blacklisting you get.

Have you considered that people may have legitimate reasons to skiplag? i.e they cannot afford the full fare, they cannot make the following flight for other reasons?

Skip laggers are not uniquely annoying pax, most of your complaints can be made of people who fly for cheap using points - probably an even more collective nuisance. Being on a megacorps side against consumers is strange behaviour.

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

#53
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't understand how someone can be barred from an airline because they got a better deal on it. Because they cause a truly stupid amount of inefficiencies and hassle with their desire to save a buck at the cost of everyone else. I think American Airlines's marketing and legal teams dropped the ball as far as how they impressed the court of public opinion, as demonstrated by this very thread. "We couldn't make mor…

I get your point. I've watched the enlightening presentation given at MIT by an airline economist where he explains that for any route, there's no single fare that would make the route profitable. To have the convenience of modern air travel, we seemingly have to put up with the pricing games that make it possible. I've never intentionally skiplagged, but there was one time the first leg of my journey was late, I mis…

I have skipped a last leg in India when I had a meeting in India during a stop-over. It was cheaper to skip it and fly home via an additional small vacation via Sri Lanka.

How did you find out that you got banned?

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

#54

I am on the airlines side really. They set the fare from A to B. If you start have people skipping they can no longer offer the competitive fares. The solution could be fines for doing it as a general principle. They also may cause delays due to final calls, security and manifest checks etc.

I implore you to explain how deplaning means they can’t be competitive. If I jump out of the airplane halfway through a flight, how does that change their pricing beyond me saving them fuel? The only way this makes sense is a segment rebate scheme for flights to underserved communities. But I don’t think this is what’s at play here because it’s not mentioned at all.

Half of HN works in SaaS or similar but it seems I need to explain.

Price discrimination is a selling strategy that charges customers different prices for the same product or service based on what the seller believes it can get the customer to agree to. In pure price discrimination, the seller charges each customer the maximum price they will pay. In more common forms of price discrimination, the seller segments customers into groups based on certain attributes and charges each group a different price.

Airlines famously work on razor thin margins. If they dont make their $ this way they need to charge more for the NYC full fare, and because all competitors do it it pushes those fares up. Which might be OK but what this means is skippers make it worse for people who legit follow the terms and conditions

My belief is people should honour the terms of the fare they paid for.

As for a parachute. That is silly. Of course that would add a lot of cost. A similar example is asking a bus driver to stop outside your house. Or let you jump out the open door. Lots of insurance and liability reasons not to do so.

The fact that fuel is the only aspect to a fare is obviously misinformed. It is like saying AWS only pay for data centre electricity.

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

#55
post #45
post #37

I don't understand how someone can be barred from an airline because they got a better deal on it. At a certain point there must be an individual who would've been barred from every airline due to this at which point it becomes some sort of cruel punishment on an individual from a whole industry for really doing nothing illegal or wrong or causing a nuisance. Airlines shouldn't be allowed to barr people simply for sk…

>I don't understand how someone can be barred from an airline because they got a better deal on it. Because they cause a truly stupid amount of inefficiencies and hassle with their desire to save a buck at the cost of everyone else. I think American Airlines's marketing and legal teams dropped the ball as far as how they impressed the court of public opinion, as demonstrated by this very thread. "We couldn't make mor…

>> I don't understand how someone can be barred from an airline because they got a better deal on it.

> Because they cause a truly stupid amount of inefficiencies and hassle with their desire to save a buck at the cost of everyone else.

This is almost entirely self-inflicted. If the airlines stopped treating people who attempt to cancel a single leg of an itinerary like borderline criminals and instead actually gave an incentive (even a small one) to cancel in advance, this problem would mostly go away.

Seriously, I’ve replaced a leg in the middle of a trip with ground transportation due to a delay, and, if I try to call the airline and tell them I’ll be missing that leg, I (a) get yelled at, (b) am threatened with cancellation of the next leg, and (c) have a heck of a time getting the airline not to follow through with (b).

If I were flying a hidden city route under these terms, I would fully understand the desire to simply no-show.

If I were involved in making regulation, I wound seriously consider requiring airlines to allow passengers to cancel single legs, with one hour notice, without penalty. Let the airlines figure out how to make it work. Charge $200 to reroute bags if needed. And, damn it, require the airline to give a partial refund if the passenger is skipping a leg because it was late (or because the previous leg was late).

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

#56
Skiplagging is a very old practice. What's new here is just the website.

Before 9/11 there was nothing the airlines could do to stop it because you didn't have to show ID to match your ticket. So they couldn't ban you even if they figured out you were skiplagging.

Now they can and they do. Which is why the airlines love that the government "forces" them to check your ID.

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

#57
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

Do you think ticket prices should be lower, or higher? What remedy do you prefer to achieve your goal?

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

#58

Skiplagging is a very old practice. What's new here is just the website. Before 9/11 there was nothing the airlines could do to stop it because you didn't have to show ID to match your ticket. So they couldn't ban you even if they figured out you were skiplagging. Now they can and they do. Which is why the airlines love that the government "forces" them to check your ID.

I also love that I don't have to ride the metal missiles with random unvetted people.

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

#59

> 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. 'Can't' or 'aren't supposed to'? Airlines oversell flights ALL THE TIME. This just allows them to double sell the seat without having to ask anyone to volunteer for a free flight credit on a later flight. Seems like…

Also... they DID sell that seat. To the person that bought it, and paid for it, and then didn't use it. They didn't cost the airline any money. They paid for the seat. They don't get the money back for the seat they don't use. The airline keeps the money for it, while not incurring the costs of filling it.

[deleted]

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

#60

Skiplagging is a very old practice. What's new here is just the website. Before 9/11 there was nothing the airlines could do to stop it because you didn't have to show ID to match your ticket. So they couldn't ban you even if they figured out you were skiplagging. Now they can and they do. Which is why the airlines love that the government "forces" them to check your ID.

> 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.

Regardless, given the above: there's nothing stopping you from booking a refundable fare on Airline B (or even a $0 Frontier flight), using that boarding pass to get through security, and then using whatever name you want on a flight with Airline A.

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