United and Orbitz Sue 22-Year-Old Programmer For Compiling Public Info

linuxwrangler writes: Aktarer Zaman, a young computer scientist, started a "side project" called Skiplagged to compile a relatively well-known method of finding inexpensive airfares. "The idea is that you buy an airline ticket that has a layover at your actual destination. Say you want to fly from New York to San Francisco — you actually book a flight from New York to Lake Tahoe with a layover in San Francisco and get off there, without bothering to take the last leg of the flight." But organizing fully public information into a user-friendly form has gotten him sued by United and Orbitz. They accuse his not-for-profit site of "unfair competition" and of promoting "strictly prohibited" travel.

Comments

Luggage?

[jbmartin6]

I guess this works with carry-on only. Or is there some way to get checked luggage at the layover?

Re:Cheaper

[Mister Transistor]

I'm guessing that due to economies of scale, the more popular and longer routes are run more, so since there's more of them and more competition, they drive the prices down on them. The shorter in-between flights aren't as popular so they are more "Specialized" and cost more?

It is not new.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Way back in 1994, the airlines had the practice of charging less for round trip tickets with a saturday night stay over. They also charged less for less popular destinations connecting through hubs. I got an interview call from a company that sent me two round trip tickets, Dallas-Fort Worth to Youngstown PA via Pittsburgh PA and another from Pittsburgh PA to Tulsa Oklahoma via Dallas-Fort Worth. The manager told me over phone, not to check in any baggage, and discard one leg of onward journey and the entire return journey for each of the tickets. They both had Saturday night stay over for the portion that was never intended to be used. One ticket in USAir and another in American.

It has always existed, and people and companies have always used it. All the airlines want to do is to make it more difficult to find it. If they really want to stop the practice, they could charge full fare for the popular segments and refund the money if the less popular options are actually exercised. They are not doing it that way. It is clear they want to accept it with a wink-and-a-nod to the savvy passengers and make the hurried and less informed passengers to pay a little more.