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Judge Tosses United Airlines Lawsuit Over 'Hidden City' Tickets
An anonymous reader writes: United Airlines lost a legal round in its effort to stop a website that helps people find 'hidden city' ticket pairs. The airline, along with online travel site Orbitz, sued New York-based Skiplagged.com and its founder, Aktarer Zaman, in November seeking an injunction to stop the site from sending users to Orbitz to purchase United tickets. A federal judge ruled Thursday that Illinois isn't the proper venue for the carrier's claims.
While helping someone find hidden cities the airlines can cancel renaining segments if they catch you. It's like they would do if they caught you ising back to back fares to get saturday stayiver pricing without staying the weekend.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Nobody should be required to buy into loss leaders or other pricing schemes like this.
All this ruling does is make them go back and file it in the appropriate venue. And while that's the right thing to do from a legal standpoint, it will have basically no bearing on the case when it is filed again in the appropriate location. This doesn't address the merits of the case (or lack thereof) in any way.
Too bad it was just a procedural dismissal due to wrong venue and not due to the merits of the case.
United said such ticketing schemes violate its fare rules. For one thing, the tickets capture seats that will go unused, and an airline would have no way to sell those unused seats
Well, actually, they already *have* sold those seats -- to the person that bought the ticket and decided not to use the rest of it. But it's not true that they have no way to sell those seats -- if the flight is overbooked or full, then they'll fill the unused seat with a bumped or standby passenger. But if they want to be able to sell that seat before departure time, all they have to do is give the ticket holder a way to cancel that leg of the bookng, perhaps refunding a small percentage of the purchase price as an incentive to do so.
So it's not true that they have no way to sell the seats, they just don't want to do it.
I could see if a person was whining for a refund for the unused portion of the trip, but other than that... United's still getting their money, and somewhere, some lucky passenger has a very slim chance at getting enough room for a midget to sit comfortably instead of needing to have their legs amputated upon landing.
I say very slim, because in nearly all cases, United's just going to shove a standby passenger on the empty seat, and make even more money.
Wouldn't have hurt to put this in the summary - who RTFA?
Say you want to fly from NY to Chicago, and that'd cost $300. You can also get a ticket from NY to LA, and that'd cost $250. The catch? That flight from NY to LA also lands in Chicago.
So if you wanted to go from NY to Chicago, you'd be better off buying the NY to LA ticket instead, saving $50.
The airlines don't like this, because if you book NY to LA, they can no longer sell the Chicago to LA seat (except at last minute rates or more often push standby passengers onto that flight) that might normally be $150. So not only are they out $50 on you, they're potentially out an additional $150 on the unsold seat.
( They save a few $ in fuel consumption, food and beverages, etc. )
Presumably the solution would be to not make part-flights more expensive than full-flights to begin with, but I'm sure the bean counters worked out that this is still the more profitable route for them.
As for headline - yeah, it's only tossed out because it's the wrong venue.. there's really no winner or loser, other than the courts who wasted time on a case that they apparently shouldn't have spent any time on at all.
You're a fucking airline. You're going where I need to go and I bought a ticket. If I'm not on the plane for the second half of the trip, you've saved that much on fuel. Fuck off.
For one thing, the tickets capture seats that will go unused, and an airline would have no way to sell those unused seats.
So they're arguing that because the customer doesn't use a seat they paid for thus preventing them from reselling it to someone else that they can't resell it to someone else.
What?
The airlines will simply insert a clause in the purchase agreement that says they can dock you the difference if you don't show up on the second leg.
I know of a specific airline that used to price KC -> Minn at $1200, but KC -> Chicago thru Minn (their hub) was $350. This is really the rape and pillage theory of pricing. I tend to fly southwest as they don't seem to be that bad about their pricing. Since this airlines hub was there they knew they had the direct flight market cornered and were obviously being stupid about it. Something that makes me direct my money to other companies that are less into raping and pillaging. Obviously not an illegal practice, but also not sure if the courts are going to side with protecting their pricing schemes, unless the rules of carriage are covered directly allowed under federal law.
We did not choose to go the hidden ticket route but we certainly thought about it. We drove since we had several people and it was not impossibly far.
They have a gofundme to help cover their legal fees.
the best way to fix this problem would be to decrease the price of your normal tickets so that the hidden city tickets arent 50% cheaper.
corporations don't pick a venue by accident. I don't know enough about the case to say why but I'm sure the venue was chosen to put him at a disadvantage.
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If you make the system operate like a game, don't whine like a baby when people play. And win.
Radical concept: quit dicking around with the pricing.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
You would think that a simple search of a cheap fare would be a relatively easy task. It actually is quite difficult.
I recently read this article from ITA systems which makes this sort of software: [pdf warning]: here. Very interesting read and shows that airline pricing is not as simple as it sounds.
In the pricing of a ticket one has to take care of not only of fuel, food, personnel and aircraft, but also landing fees, luggage handling fees and the rest. It is no wonder that some pricing looks a little arcane to the customer - because it is.
Chicago and LA are bad examples because those are popular destinations.
An regional airport about an hour from where I live only gets four flights in and out a day, and the planes are usually 3/4 empty. The only reason the airport is open is because the government requires the airlines provide service to it; tickets on those flights are heavily subsidized - I read an estimate that each ticket sold represents a loss of about $600. I can get a ticket to fly into a major hub airport about 2 hours away or a ticket to the regional airport for a bit less because of that subsidy. The airline doesn't want to sell you or me the cheaper ticket, but they're required to offer them.
I don't blame the airline for trying to stop people from using that subsidy to get a cheaper flight into the hub.
These fairs are cheaper with layovers are games the airlines play with fairs to maximize revenue
The airline is essentially paying you to fly on an unprofitable route in order to meet regulations that they provide service on that route.
In the pricing of a ticket one has to take care of not only of fuel, food, personnel and aircraft, but also landing fees, luggage handling fees and the rest. It is no wonder that some pricing looks a little arcane to the customer - because it is.
You shouldn't forget that the price of a product is not set entirely based on the costs to produce it but what customers are willing to pay for it. A direct flight is more valuable than a flight with a layover even though the costs for the airline are lower with a direct flight too. A prime example of this that I notice all the time because I live in Finland and often visit Asia is how direct flights from Helsinki to any city in Asia to which there is a direct flight cost more than if I were to fly via a major European hub. The latter option of course takes almost twice as much time and involves flying back and forth along almost the same airway but also costs less because airlines know that such tickets are worth less to me as a consumer than a direct flight is. And of course, flying from Europe to Asia with a layover in Helsinki also costs less than a direct flight. This sort of pricing which makes the most cost-concious people in cities A and B who want to travel to C fly A->B->C and B->A->C respectively even though there are direct flights between all three cities is an unfortunate but inevitable side-effect of the free market that happens at the expense of the environment. Compared with that, it doesn't seem like such a bad adverse effect of the free market that the cheapest printers are programmed to be much slower than the hardware would permit simply to enable higher price tags on practically identical hardware programmed to print actual maximum speed. If airlines ever invent a reason why some passengers with direct flights have to arrive 12 hours before departure just to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room, such pricing would disappear and the cheapest tickets would instead require that.
You may not like it , but ticket are sold based on a CONDITION of utilization, and based on a FARE. Not respecting the condition is renegating on a contract.
When you buy a ticket, you actually have a sort of contract with the airline , as mentioned in term and condition on sale often behind the ticket in small print. And the airline DO offer that price lower because they get to sell the *second* leg, while the single O&D is higher because they know that means their hub will not be able to catch you for an onto flight - in fact you are getting different fare. By not using the second leg, you make the second leg more expansive for the airline paradoxically, due to the cascade of effect it has on revenue management process. Frankly this is the same reason why there was a stamp down in some airline on people buying week end tickets, then only flying "out" on monday and flying "in" Monday or using 1 ticket over 2. The fare week end is only valid if you *stay* there.
You don't want to respect the condition on the sale ? Then don't buy the ticket. Go to the concurrence.
I live in ATL. Needed to get to Düsseldorf last fall for a conference. ... going through ATL both ways.
ATL-DUS was $2300.
Ft. Meyers, FL to DUS was $800
Bought a $99 flight on a different airline to Ft. Meyers and flew to Düsseldorf. On the way home, did all carry-on and just walked off the plane in Atlanta.
Don't feel guilty at all. Paid for an entire trip, just didn't use it all. It is like throwing away half a soda if I'd had enough or not reading an entire newspaper/magazine after reading the articles I was interested in. Immigration and customs was cleared in ATL regardless.
If they simply made longer distances and more stops always cost more or the same, this issue would go away. It isn't like it costs them less for me to fly farther and have a stop. They are manipulating the market.
They created the game, We are just playing it.
I flew 66K miles last year. They made plenty of money where I couldn't game their system better.
Perhaps they don't wait anymore. However, I do have a personal experience of a plane being held for me...
1992 -- I was flying from Dallas to Ottawa, with connecting flight in Toronto. The plane to Toronto was delayed 30min by storms in the Midwest. When I landed, an airline employee met me at the gate and said my connecting flight was being held for me and that I needed to hurry. I was rushed through customs, then told to run. I ran. Periodically along the way, they had personnel, saying "Run!". When I finally got to the plane, I met a see of glowering faces. Oh joy.
I really wished they had just provided a cart. :)
They *still* got paid for it. They can even resell it to a standby passenger when you don't show up. And even if they don't they save some fuel by flying a less-laden plane.
I'm completely at a loss as to why this is a problem for the airlines. Except that the "normal" fare is even higher.
Need to get me to my destination on time and not bump me off the plane because they *OVERSOLD* it!
They offered to fly me from point A to point B at a particular time for a particular price. They FUCK UP and over sell and force me off the plane. And don't make me late because of your "equipment problems". Can't have it both ways.
Simple solution: charge the full fare (i.e., the fare for whichever part of the route you're booking would cost most) but offer a rebate - which the passenger(s) can only claim if and when they actually arrive at the destination airport.