from Hacker News

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

by us0r on 10/19/24, 12:52 AM with 117 comments

• by wongarsu on 10/19/24, 1:15 AM

  > 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 lost because they couldn't charge more for a shorter flight and now have to fly the last leg with less weight

  But it seems like the entire court case was mostly centered around the legality of the branding of the website. I guess overall the guy behind skiplagged will be happy to have gotten away with what amounts to 10% of revenue in exchange for a lot of publicity.

• by exabrial on 10/19/24, 1:20 AM

  Funny, in the rental market, most states literally _very enthusiastically_ enforce a housing regulation where is staunchly illegal charge rent to two people for the same property, regardless of whatever contracts they've signed. So you know, how the airlines might book 103% of capacity on a plane? oh yeah, straight to jail. Guy signed a lease and defaulted, you find a substitute renter and you don't cancel the original tenant's payments? also, believe it or not, straight to jail.

• by onlypassingthru on 10/19/24, 1:35 AM

  > 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 a win-win.

• by perihelions on 10/19/24, 2:18 AM

  I'm astonished it's currently legal for airlines to ban passengers for optimizing their ticket fares—for taking the offers the airlines themselves publicly tender, and being too competent at choosing at the best one.

  - "American reportedly removed a 17-year-old from a flight last year and banned him for three years when he tried to fly from Gainesville, Florida, to Charlotte, North Carolina, on a ticket with a final destination of New York City. The ticket was supposedly cheaper than booking a flight to Charlotte alone."

  There ought to be a consumer protection law about it. Not one specific to airlines, but a universal protection—a "right to optimize", if you will. If you ban customers for taking advantage of a publicly-advertised offer, then why are you allowed to advertise that offer in the first place?

• by friedtofu on 10/19/24, 1:14 AM

  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 fool consumers into thinking they are buying from the airline.

• by librish on 10/19/24, 1:12 AM

  I'm surprised that this common enough that it's worthwhile for airlines to fight it. It requires both:

  - Flight being meaningfully cheaper using hidden city

  and

  - Traveller is willing to deal with the restrictions (no carry-on, risk of route changing, no frequent flyer etc).

• by jmward01 on 10/19/24, 1:08 AM

  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.

• by dreamcompiler on 10/19/24, 4:10 AM

  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.

• by smashah on 10/19/24, 1:52 AM

  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 skipping a leg on a flight, no matter how much it may annoy someone in management.

• by x3n0ph3n3 on 10/19/24, 1:12 AM

  I don't understand the airline's argument that they couldn't resell the seat. Of course not, it was already paid for! Can someone make sense of their argument for me, as it seems prima facia illegitimate.

• by divbzero on 10/19/24, 5:20 AM

  I didn’t know “skiplagging” was a thing, but I actually did it once myself and almost got in trouble for it.

  1. I booked roundtrip A → B → C and C → B → A.

  2. I skipped B → C because I needed to spend a few days at B.

  3. I booked a separate one-way B → C which was cheap because it was a short hop.

  What I didn’t realize was that the airline canceled my C → B → A return trip when I skipped B → C. Fortunately, I discovered this early when I spoke to customer service about an unrelated question: the airline kindly explained to me what happened, warned me not to do it again, and rebooked my flight back.

• by bhouston on 10/19/24, 1:16 AM

  Well, Skiplagged is still in business and this probably just drives more traffic to their website as this raises awareness. Apparently they have had more than $100M in ticket sales, if not much more.

• by grakker on 10/19/24, 2:09 AM

  I really, really don't understand the airlines' problem with this. The seat was paid for, if nobody is in it, they save a fraction of a penny on fuel. What do they lose if the seat is empty vs the person still sitting in it? They get the exact same revenue. I'm so confused.

• by dave333 on 10/19/24, 5:17 AM

  Of course they can sell the seat - airlines oversell all the time since they know some people won't show. Just need to predict that with a few statistics and sell some extra tickets for the skiplagged leg. I think airlines should be required to make tickets to intermediary destinations no more expensive than the same class fare to the final destination then there is no incentive to book a skiplagged ticket and it would benefit consumers in less competitive markets. A case of a good regulation. Right now fares to popular competitive destinations are subsidized by price gouging on less popular destinations.

• by blackeyeblitzar on 10/19/24, 1:33 AM

  How about we jail airline executives and fine airlines for overselling flights, forcing people to give up their seats, banning people for skiplagging, kicking people off based on clothing, etc. If they can be so arbitrary and refuse passengers, we should just revoke their license to operate.

• by hilux on 10/19/24, 4:56 AM

  So bogus.

  For those who are wondering, skiplagging does work, and can save you a boatload of $$$.

  AND you have to understand the system and have some attention to detail, especially internationally.

• by ChrisArchitect on 10/19/24, 1:49 AM

  American Airlines specifically on that title

• by ejddhbrbrrnrn on 10/19/24, 1:30 AM

  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.