Unfair Competition?
December 31, 2014 7:25 AM   Subscribe

A flight from Baltimore to Cleveland via Atlanta is $83. A flight from Baltimore to Atlanta directly is $112. So if you want to save money, you can buy the ticket to Cleveland, and just not get on the connecting flight. This is called a 'hidden city' fare, a trick used by frequent flyers and travel agents for years. Skiplagged.com lets you search for them. They're being sued by Orbitz and American Airlines.
posted by empath (98 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
Those prices are Actual Fares from a search I did while making the post. Some caveats -- you can only buy a one way ticket this way, and you can't check any bags.
posted by empath at 7:27 AM on December 31, 2014


They're only asking $75k in damages? That seems ludicrously low if it is actually damaging them.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:28 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Seems about enough to totally bankrupt and screw the 22 year old kid though.
posted by cavalier at 7:32 AM on December 31, 2014 [22 favorites]


I mean, it would actually be a problem if lots of people bought their tickets like this, right? Then you've got a plane flying from Atlanta to Cleveland half empty, and people who wanted to be on that flight but couldn't get tickets.
posted by escabeche at 7:33 AM on December 31, 2014


Seems about enough to totally bankrupt and screw the 22 year old kid though.

Nah, he's already raised $40k for his legal fund.
posted by empath at 7:34 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


BungaDunga - $75000 is the minimum to sue in federal court, so that's probably just the reporter misunderstanding the legal trick used to establish a particular federal (vs state) jurisdiction.
posted by carlodio at 7:34 AM on December 31, 2014 [10 favorites]


I mean, it would actually be a problem if lots of people bought their tickets like this, right? Then you've got a plane flying from Atlanta to Cleveland half empty, and people who wanted to be on that flight but couldn't get tickets.

Or alternatively, airlines could stop overcharging for direct flights.
posted by empath at 7:35 AM on December 31, 2014 [93 favorites]


They're only asking $75k in damages? That seems ludicrously low if it is actually damaging them.

Of course, he's not actually damaging them — he's driving business their way. But they'd rather he didn't exist; he has no business model as yet for making any money, so maybe they figured $75K would get him out of the way.

I mean, it would actually be a problem if lots of people bought their tickets like this, right? Then you've got a plane flying from Atlanta to Cleveland half empty, and people who wanted to be on that flight but couldn't get tickets.

I think that's the basic problem from the airline POV. The question is, why don't the airlines just tweak their pricing algorithms to avoid hidden city fares that undercut their direct fares?
posted by beagle at 7:36 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


I mean, it would actually be a problem if lots of people bought their tickets like this, right? Then you've got a plane flying from Atlanta to Cleveland half empty, and people who wanted to be on that flight but couldn't get tickets.

Then maybe the airlines would be forced to charge prices that make any sense at all.
posted by hydropsyche at 7:36 AM on December 31, 2014 [12 favorites]


@escabeche, I'm not convinced it's as dire a problem as United Airlines claims, given that US airlines have a long history of over-booking flights. However, I have a bias against churches, corporations, and governments and in favor of individuals, especially individuals who aren't wealthy.

That said, if domestic carriers want to provide the average air traveler with an experience that is less pleasant than just riding a bus or a train, then why shouldn't passengers treat air travel like riding on a flying bus? The only substantive difference appears to be that you can ride a Greyhound bus or an Amtrak train without getting an UFIA from the TSA.
posted by starbreaker at 7:37 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


*looking at U.S. map* Why in God's name is it cheaper to go through Atlanta? That's hundreds of miles out of the way! Oh, right, what hydropsyche said...
posted by Melismata at 7:40 AM on December 31, 2014


Once in a while I've accidentally found and bought fares like that. In the old days of travel agents and small print ads for international flights in the NYTimes, smart agents would know how to find these for some international routes.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:43 AM on December 31, 2014


He's saving them money per flight on the second leg. People are paying for the second leg, but they're not having to haul them. Jet fuel to get a body into the sky is a non-zero cost.

If their pricing structure is losing them money, maybe they should change their pricing structure.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:43 AM on December 31, 2014 [18 favorites]


Then maybe the airlines would be forced to charge prices that make any sense at all.

I don't see how I'm better served by prices that make sense, if "makes sense" means I have to pay $112 for my Cleveland-Atlanta round trip that used to cost $83.
posted by escabeche at 7:44 AM on December 31, 2014


I mean, it would actually be a problem if lots of people bought their tickets like this, right? Then you've got a plane flying from Atlanta to Cleveland half empty, and people who wanted to be on that flight but couldn't get tickets.

Well, you could look at it that way, but the seats were still paid for by the original passenger. You could also look at it as the airlines still selling the same seats, but saving money in fuel and maintenance.
posted by oulipian at 7:45 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Airlines have it in their heads - to the point of obsession - that FULL PLANES ARE MORE COST EFFECTIVE ABOVE ALL ELSE so they tweak prices to make sure that the extra flight is also full because that's good business right? Even if they could have made just as much money having two full planes and inconvenienced (by hours) customers and one full and one half empty flight and happy customers?

It's stupid and makes no sense. Planes use less fuel when they are lighter and they ought to average their costs over several routes to subsidise the less profitable routes to offer a better service. But that would assume that airlines want to give good service.... wait.

Everything comes around to 'airline pricing is dumb', doesn't it?
posted by Brockles at 7:45 AM on December 31, 2014 [4 favorites]


Correction: They're being sued by Orbitz and United Airlines.
posted by stevil at 7:45 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


IIRC the problem for the airline is that they pay a charge to the airports where you take off and land because they assume you'll be using concourse space, parking, etc. while you're there. This is why it's cheaper to fly through Atlanta than to it, because the Atlanta airport is already bursting at the seams.

On the other handi suing the kid is over the top and they need to get slammed hard for this. Flyers have been gaming the computer booking system for years and if you're offering a game that can be beaten, whether it's frequent flyer miles worth more than the cost of the ticket or a blackjack game that can be card-counted, suing the people who point it out is not an appropriate response.
posted by localroger at 7:46 AM on December 31, 2014 [15 favorites]


I really like searching flights via Hipmunk. They let you sort by agony, and clearly display the overall length of the flight, including layover time. I don't think they're hooked into Southwest though, which is a bummer, because they're usually the easiest way to get from Texas to anywhere in the USA.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:46 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Why in God's name is it cheaper to go through Atlanta

So I think what happens is this:

Delta doesn't ever sell out these three routes:

Baltimore - Cleveland
Baltimore - Atl
Atl - Cleveland.

So what they do is sell as many tickets as the can on the Baltimore-Atlanta flight direct, and on the Atlanta-Cleveland flight direct. Anything left over gets sold as a Baltimore-Cleveland flight. Which has to be extremely low cost, because that's a 5 hour drive, and they're selling a 3+hour flight including a layover. Probably very few people buy it, even at that price, but the seats aren't selling anyway, so why not take the money if they can get it.
posted by empath at 7:47 AM on December 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


No kidding, @empath. I recently checked Priceline and Orbitz for a flight from Harrisburg to Indianapolis. Airlines wanted almost $500 per ticket to fly steerage, and would overshoot my destination to land in Chicago. If I wanted to do GenCon next year, it would be cheaper to drive. And it's not like I don't have more than ten hours worth of European heavy metal for the drive. :)
posted by starbreaker at 7:48 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm actually surprised that this is still a thing.

I used to play with fares like this in the early 2000s when there were HUGE discrepancies in prices and the airlines weren't so great at catching people. In 2002, the airlines seemed to smarten up some and I got burned when the return portion of my round trip ticket was canceled because I hadn't made the connection.

Since then, it seemed like there weren't as many of these "hidden city" opportunities (pricing has been somewhat more logical for the routes that I fly) and the airline rules have gotten stricter and it's harder to predict things like when you might be forced to gate check a carry-on so it hasn't seemed worth it to me to look into. I wonder if the fact that United is pursuing this means that they intend to go back to having the huge price differentials again.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:51 AM on December 31, 2014




IIRC the problem for the airline is that they pay a charge to the airports where you take off and land because they assume you'll be using concourse space, parking, etc. while you're there. This is why it's cheaper to fly through Atlanta than to it, because the Atlanta airport is already bursting at the seams.

Landing fees at Atlanta are 81 cents per thousand pounds. Landing a 320 at MLW is $118. Split between 150 people that's less than a buck. So where do the other $28 come in?
posted by Talez at 7:52 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


I mean, it would actually be a problem if lots of people bought their tickets like this, right? Then you've got a plane flying from Atlanta to Cleveland half empty, and people who wanted to be on that flight but couldn't get tickets.

Empty seats are problematic only if you assume that "empty" means "unsold". If the seats are paid for but empty, I don't see the problem — the airline gets their ticket money without having to fly passenger mass, saving on fuel.
posted by indubitable at 7:52 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Or alternatively, airlines could stop overcharging for direct flights.

Except that this really isn't a case of that. The problem with the argument is that the single routes are only one of the factors in determining the rate - there's also traffic flow to consider.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:52 AM on December 31, 2014


In 2002, the airlines seemed to smarten up some and I got burned when the return portion of my round trip ticket was canceled because I hadn't made the connection.

You can't buy a round trip ticket this way.
posted by empath at 7:53 AM on December 31, 2014


Too bad the app isn't finding fares right now on iOS.
posted by oceanjesse at 7:53 AM on December 31, 2014


I also cannot understand how they have any hope of winning a lawsuit, since the kid is basically only publishing the facts of the airfares. (I know they're trying to bully him, but isn't there some disincentive to such a frivolous suit?)
posted by bashos_frog at 7:54 AM on December 31, 2014


Everything comes around to 'airline pricing is dumb', doesn't it?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:57 AM on December 31, 2014


You can't buy a round trip ticket this way.

I'd done it previously. I can't remember the route exactly, but it was something like YYZ-->ORD-->IND and I only wanted to got YYZ-->ORD and back.

On the outgoing portion, I got off the plane in Chicago, and did my thing. On the incoming portion, I told the gate agent that I'd missed my connection in IND and caught a bus to ORD. This was pre-9/11 and all, but it worked.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:59 AM on December 31, 2014


The widespread coverage of this shows the Streisand Effect in action. I mean, this guy made money from home with this one weird trick. Airlines hate him. Who wouldn't want to click that?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:00 AM on December 31, 2014 [21 favorites]


I used to play with fares like this in the early 2000s when there were HUGE discrepancies in prices and the airlines weren't so great at catching people. In 2002, the airlines seemed to smarten up some and I got burned when the return portion of my round trip ticket was canceled because I hadn't made the connection.

I seem to recall something happening with planes in late 2001 that changed a lot about the airline industry.
posted by Badgermann at 8:01 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


Probably very few people buy it, even at that price, but the seats aren't selling anyway, so why not take the money if they can get it.

Right -- which makes perfect sense. Until people start realizing that they can game the system by buying the Baltimore-Atlanta-Cleveland itinerary and skipping the last leg. Then what used to be an undesirable itinerary that cost-sensitive travelers could get at a deep discount becomes an attractive way to get from Baltimore to Atlanta, so its price goes up, and the pricing becomes more "logical", and worse for fliers.

If the seats are paid for but empty, I don't see the problem — the airline gets their ticket money without having to fly passenger mass, saving on fuel.

You don't see the problem with me not being able to get on a flight because someone else has reserved a seat they're not going to use so they can save thirty bucks? Or with planes flying half-full from Cleveland to Atlanta, spewing carbon into the sky all the way? Half the weight of a jet full of passengers is the jet. Neither you or the airlines want those things flying empty.
posted by escabeche at 8:01 AM on December 31, 2014 [12 favorites]


The opposite of this problem is that when I fly for work I always end up having to fly from MSP to PHX to PDX instead of MSP to PDX direct cuz it's $200 cheaper. So I get on a plane, fly 3 hours in the wrong direction. Layover, then 3 hours in the right direction. Then do it in reverse on the way home. It's like flying to Mars to get to the Moon.
posted by ian1977 at 8:05 AM on December 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


Alaska Airlines flies consistant routes at regular intervals. They used to magically have a plane in need of emergency maintenance every time a plane was less than 50% full. Somehow the second flight was almost always exactly full. Who is going to complain about emergency maintenance?
posted by vapidave at 8:07 AM on December 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


Then what used to be an undesirable itinerary that cost-sensitive travelers could get at a deep discount becomes an attractive way to get from Baltimore to Atlanta, so its price goes up, and the pricing becomes more "logical", and worse for fliers.

You really think making airline pricing more transparent is a net bad for fliers?

I mean really the reason for this is the hub and spoke model. You can't maintain that sensically and have transitive prices, I don't think.
posted by PMdixon at 8:09 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


Right -- which makes perfect sense. Until people start realizing that they can game the system by buying the Baltimore-Atlanta-Cleveland itinerary and skipping the last leg. Then what used to be an undesirable itinerary that cost-sensitive travelers could get at a deep discount becomes an attractive way to get from Baltimore to Atlanta, so its price goes up, and the pricing becomes more "logical", and worse for fliers.

Assuming this becomes a thing, the Airlines will respond by raising the cost of the Baltimore-Cleveland flight and lower the cost of the flight to Atlanta. There will probably be fewer seats sold. Maybe they can give everyone more leg room.
posted by empath at 8:11 AM on December 31, 2014


If he's not selling tickets (which he isn't) I don't understand what "competition" could possibly mean in this context.
posted by emjaybee at 8:13 AM on December 31, 2014


You don't see the problem with me not being able to get on a flight because someone else has reserved a seat they're not going to use so they can save thirty bucks?

There's a positive marginal cost to fly a passenger from Atlanta to Cleveland, but the airline actually charges a negative price for that leg of a trip. In this case, it seems obvious that the airline must be charging passengers who wish to go to Atlanta rather more than the marginal cost of flying from Baltimore to Atlanta since they're willing to fly people on that route for less. Anytime a firm is charging something other than the marginal cost of a product, they're exploiting someone and need to be stomped on hard.

So, yeah, there's a problem with the situation you're describing, but the problem is the airlines' exploitation of people with hubs as their destinations, and you should be blaming the airlines. Blaming people who are just trying to avoid actual, literal economic exploitation is wrong.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:13 AM on December 31, 2014 [13 favorites]


You don't see the problem with me not being able to get on a flight because someone else has reserved a seat they're not going to use so they can save thirty bucks?

No? That's your problem, not mine. And it doesn't pass the laugh test that airlines are concerned about hypothetical customers not being able to buy a seat; that would be the first time they showed any consideration for their users.

Basically the airlines don't like the fact that somebody is using the same sort of loopholes they're experts in using to extort more money from their customers.
posted by MartinWisse at 8:15 AM on December 31, 2014 [9 favorites]


You really think making airline pricing more transparent is a net bad for fliers?

It has been, when making pricing more transparent meant decoupling various add on fees (luggage, credit card fees, etc) from the actual price for the flight and suddenly something that cost the airline money before was now a profit point (or no, it doesn't cost you five euro to make a credit card payment, you thieves.)
posted by MartinWisse at 8:17 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


You don't see the problem with me not being able to get on a flight because someone else has reserved a seat they're not going to use so they can save thirty bucks?

The reduced plane weight results in lower carbon emissions. I'm saving the planet for you! You're welcome
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:18 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


The reduced plane weight results in lower carbon emissions.

If you care about carbon emissions (not that I think United particularly cares about this) you want passengers packed into planes as tightly as possible, or not flying at all.
posted by escabeche at 8:22 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


You don't see the problem with me not being able to get on a flight because someone else has reserved a seat they're not going to use so they can save thirty bucks?

No? It's not as though there is a fundamental human right to buy an airline ticket for the flight that is most convenient for you.

Or with planes flying half-full from Cleveland to Atlanta, spewing carbon into the sky all the way?

If the carbon thing bothers you that much, then why are you flying at all?
posted by indubitable at 8:22 AM on December 31, 2014


Flying is unpleasant and time-consuming. The less flying you do to get from point A to point B, the better.

Flying directly from A to B is therefore a premium service, so you get to pay more for it. Cost isn't really relevant, because price is only loosely coupled to cost.

Further, for any given hub city, there are way way more direct flights on the hub airline than on any other airline. If I live anywhere in the South, I can fly directly to Atlanta on Delta. If I want to fly American, I have to connect through Dallas. So I have fewer choices for how to get to Atlanta, so they have more pricing power.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:23 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I mean really the reason for this is the hub and spoke model.

Bingo. That model needs to disappear. I get needing hubs from a maintenance point of view, but it's no longer even remotely necessary for logistics--there's no reason why United's logistics/admin hub couldn't be in Kathmandu these days.

Planes should fly where needed. If it could be decoupled from evil, this is actually a pretty decent example of where the capitalist efficiency machine could be used for good. There's no use served by e.g. two half-full planes from two airlines taking off and landing in the same destination within a few minutes.

Also is it just me or is there a lot of airline grar right now? Maybe it's the time of year.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:24 AM on December 31, 2014


The argument that other passengers couldn't get a seat is ludicrous: those hypothetical passengers wouldn't be able to get a seat anyway if the passenger travelled to his or her final destination.

Airlines put a lot of effort into maximising their revenue; any time they're doing this there will actually be a reason. In this case the reason is basically the one Empath gives above, but there can also be the airlines' need to maintain competitive prices: if their competitors fly direct then they may offer a lower fare so that they don't sacrifice their route to the competition. They don't want anyone "abusing" this though, because that would mean they make less money on their other routes: the ones which aren't being artificially lowered in price. I don't have much sympathy for this strategy: if they were practically unable to use it then they would have to actually either lower their costs on the contested route or withdraw from it. Either way, the system as a whole would become more efficient.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:30 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Airlines have it in their heads - to the point of obsession - that FULL PLANES ARE MORE COST EFFECTIVE ABOVE ALL ELSE so they tweak prices to make sure that the extra flight is also full because that's good business right?

Right. A airline seat on a given flight is an expiring good. It's sellable right up to the moment that plane leaves, then it's worthless. This is why you used to be able to get cheap standbys on international flights. If they had empty seats, they'd rather have $50 than $0.

The fuel issue is really minor, and if you think about it, they have to pay to fly the seats regardless. They'd much rather have a passenger in that seat paying them money.

Look at the airlines making profits. They're making sure to fill the planes. Airlines flying half empty planes go broke. The plane costs the same, the crew costs the same, the fuel savings is minor (and right now, fuel is cheaper than it has been in 15 years.)

About the only time you'll see a consistently empty bird flying is when it's starting a route flying into a hub. That leg may not fill, but it fills after it reaches the hub. Even then, airlines try to minimize that as much as possible.

No airline makes money flying empty seats.

There will probably be fewer seats sold. Maybe they can give everyone more leg room.

Nope. They'll fly a smaller plane on the route, fly fewer planes, or stop flying the route if it's unprofitable enough. Southwest, in particular, will not fly a route unless they know they'll sell every seat at least 80% of the time.

The key metric is Passenger Yield, which is the average revenue per passenger flown one mile. With a half empty plane, most of the costs -- crew, maintenance, time -- are the same, but the revenue for the flight is cut in half, which cuts pax yield in half.

Why do you think Spirit is cutting legroom and adding seats?
posted by eriko at 8:30 AM on December 31, 2014 [11 favorites]


Hub and spoke works because it's designed to get people from domestic routes onto the international routes. The international routes are by far the most profitable for an airline. Domestic US airlines like Southwest can run a point-to-point system (and do) because it's more efficient, but they don't have to get on international routes, either.

Although that will be changing over the next few years as they expand flying into Mexico and S. America.

Eriko's post above hits closest to the mark: Revenue Management at an airline is a black art practiced by eleventy-seventh-level wizards backed by Ninjas with laser-eyed sharks on leashes.
posted by Thistledown at 8:35 AM on December 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


I'm confused; are the sharks leashed or the ninjas?
posted by PMdixon at 8:38 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


So I have fewer choices for how to get to Atlanta, so they have more pricing power.

This. I recall reading somewhere that the most expensive airports in the country to fly into/out of were all airports at which one airline controls the vast majority of the routes.

Anecdote: A couple of years ago, I had to travel to Cincinnati for work. Apparently Delta has a near-monopoly on the Cincinnati airport, and a monopoly on the NYC-Cincinnati route. So, flying NYC-Cincinnati direct is CRAZY expensive (or at least it was in 2012). I was truly gobsmacked. A flight to Cincinnati cost about the same as a flight to Europe. No joke.

The corporate travel thingy wanted me to fly on US Airways via Charlotte. Charlotte! That's like, what - 600 miles out of the way? The wastefulness, and sheer irrationality of the thing infuriated me. I'm supposed to fly to Charlotte to fly to Cincinnati!? Next time I want to go to Philadelphia, why don't I just pop over to Boston first? I was just baffled.

My solution was to fly to Dayton - which was far cheaper - rent a car, and drive to Cincinnati. I don't know that this saved me very much time (probably a little) but it at least made sense and did not offend my sense of logic. Unfortunately, not all destinations have another airport under an hour away.
posted by breakin' the law at 8:39 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


The opposite of this problem is that when I fly for work I always end up having to fly from MSP to PHX to PDX instead of MSP to PDX direct cuz it's $200 cheaper.

Ahh, that's because you fly from MSP, the most infamous of the fortress hubs. Since Delta controls most of the flights into/out of MSP, they set the prices.

However, this is where I'd have a talk with work. That's an entire work day you're losing on that turn. They'd be better off eating the $200 and getting the extra 6-8 hours of work time from you.

I realize this counts on somebody in the back office being rational, which far too often isn't the case.
posted by eriko at 8:39 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Cost isn't really relevant, because price is only loosely coupled to cost.

Price being only loosely coupled to cost necessarily implies widespread economic exploitation, which in turn necessarily results in Pareto-inferior outcomes.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:43 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


This has been against the contract of carriage on nearly every airline since basically forever at this point. Inducing someone to break their contract with a third party is a tort, hence the guy getting sued by United. No idea what Orbitz has to do with it, but he's well and truly fucked in the sense that he will lose.
posted by wierdo at 8:45 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


No? That's your problem, not mine.

Fuck you, got mine.
posted by holybagel at 8:46 AM on December 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


Domestic US airlines like Southwest can run a point-to-point system (and do) because it's more efficient, but they don't have to get on international routes, either.

Southwest's network now isn't point to point, it's a distributed hub system, with the three big interconnect hubs being DAL, STL and MDW.

I recall reading somewhere that the most expensive airports in the country to fly into/out of were all airports at which one airline controls the vast majority of the routes.

Yep. Fortress hubs. ATL and MSP are the most infamous ones. CVG used to be, but after the merger, CVG has been reduced to a secondary hub.

Chicago gets a break, because there's two airlines with hubs at ORD (UA/AA) and WN at MDW, so you typically have at least three choices on any given route. Even internationals, I think there are four airlines flying ORD-LHR right now (UA/AA/VA/BA) and there may be more.

My solution was to fly to Dayton - which was far cheaper - rent a car, and drive to Cincinnati.

I found DAY to be one of the better airports in the country. Modern, clean, small, you walk to the rental cars. Much better than CVG. AUS in Texas is also a winner.

ORD is ORD, though with the runway reconfiguration, it's gotten a lot better about delays, and it'll will get much better this fall when runway 10R-28L opens, giving ORD 5 parallel runways. Still, I can get from my front door to a T3 gate in less than an hour, and I don't need a car to do it. That's a winner, the single most annoying thing to deal with at big airports is a car.
posted by eriko at 8:46 AM on December 31, 2014


Anecdote: A couple of years ago, I had to travel to Cincinnati for work. Apparently Delta has a near-monopoly on the Cincinnati airport, and a monopoly on the NYC-Cincinnati route. So, flying NYC-Cincinnati direct is CRAZY expensive (or at least it was in 2012). I was truly gobsmacked. A flight to Cincinnati cost about the same as a flight to Europe. No joke.

One-way: $500 non-stop, $250 via charlotte, just checked on orbitz. Absurd.
posted by empath at 8:48 AM on December 31, 2014


I used to do this for train travel in England.

I hate the vampires who invented this kind of pricing scheme.
posted by srboisvert at 8:51 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


ROU_Xenophobe: Given that airlines almost always lose money, it could be said that the loose coupling of price and airfare is an example of a greatly positive outcome for consumers, at the expense of investors and suppliers (including employees) who get stiffed every so often. Partly because airlines underprice tickets on certain routes for competitive reasons, as well as on the theory that some money is better than no money if you're going to be flying the plane anyway, and partly because people have vastly fucked up ideas about what it "should" cost to fly.

In many ways, regulation of airfare, at least on most domestic routes, was a very good thing. Not that airlines didn't find themselves ways to go bust even with a nominally cost-plus model.
posted by wierdo at 8:52 AM on December 31, 2014


I am completely on board with anything that sticks it to airlines. Fuck 'em.

My absolutely nontrivial travel history unfortunately coincided with the 15 or so years in which customer service got completely thrown out in favor of the "fuck you, pay me" school of business. The last straw for me was pleasant, useful, hometown-pal Continental being swallowed up by unrepentant jackass United. My working theory is that the chuckleheads at United have figured out a way to monetize customer hatred, a field I presume was founded by a consortium of cable companies and telcos.

I'm so VERY VERY glad I don't have to fly much anymore.
posted by uberchet at 8:53 AM on December 31, 2014 [9 favorites]


$75000 is the minimum to sue in federal court, so that's probably just the reporter misunderstanding the legal trick used to establish a particular federal (vs state) jurisdiction.

Okay, this is from way back in the thread, but fun fact: They can't sue in federal court this way (diversity jurisdiction) unless they're claiming *more than* $75k in damages. So if the complaint actually says $75k exactly (I can't find it online), the corporations' lawyers screwed up in a wonderfully hilarious way.
posted by heisenberg at 9:02 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Given that airlines almost always lose money, it could be said that the loose coupling of price and airfare is an example of a greatly positive outcome for consumers, at the expense of investors and suppliers (including employees) who get stiffed every so often

Pareto inferiority is still harm and loss.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:06 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


One-way: $500 non-stop, $250 via charlotte, just checked on orbitz. Absurd.

IIRC - which I very well may not be - it was something like $900/$400 when I did this in 2012, for round-trip.

I found DAY to be one of the better airports in the country. Modern, clean, small, you walk to the rental cars. Much better than CVG. AUS in Texas is also a winner.

DAY was pretty nice. I haven't flown through ORD in awhile, but I found it better than the NYC airports (although some terminals are better than others). Never been to Austin.
posted by breakin' the law at 9:08 AM on December 31, 2014


This has been against the contract of carriage on nearly every airline since basically forever at this point. Inducing someone to break their contract with a third party is a tort [...]

I don't see how he's inducing anyone to break a contract. The people using his website haven't even made a contract with the airline. These are the typical elements of tortious interference according to Wikipedia:
  • The existence of a contractual relationship or beneficial business relationship between two parties.
  • Knowledge of that relationship by a third party.
  • Intent of the third party to induce a party to the relationship to breach the relationship.
  • Lack of any privilege on the part of the third party to induce such a breach.
  • The contractual relationship is breached.
  • Damage to the party against whom the breach occurs.
Presuming the hidden-city clause is legally valid (I have no idea), the immediate problems with your theory are:
  1. The potential passenger does not presently have a contract with the airline;
  2. Skiplagged (consequently) has no "knowledge" of a contractual relationship;
  3. Skiplagged isn't inducing anyone to break their contract - the incentive comes from the airline itself;
  4. It's not clear that any damage has been caused to the airline, given that the remedy would be to force the passenger to complete his or her journey.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:09 AM on December 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


If commercial aviation is anything like private/corporate aviation, I'm willing to bet that United is also realizing a signifigant savings in terms of fuel pricing/storage and facility fees for basing its fleet at Atlanta, which is also a contributing factor for the weird price discrepancy. If you have your entire fleet fueling at your hub that's hundreds of thousands (if not millions) less than having to fuel at airports where your airline sees less activity. This is also a big reason why the major airlines often partner up with regional airlines, as a way to get some revenue without actually having to cover the direct flight while making sure the customer is still booking through them (the ostensible advantage to the regional carrier is the increase in passenger revenue-- sure, they have to split it with their partner but the hope is that the increase in passengers offsets the split).
posted by KingEdRa at 9:30 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


This consumerist article contains a link to a pdf of the actual lawsuit. Looks like Orbitz is complaining about unauthorized use of its API.
posted by Bistle at 9:36 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Orbitz claims that the Skiplagged owner “expressly agreed not to engage in this conduct when he entered into an affiliate agreement with Orbitz, LLC in early 2013.”

If he agreed to their API terms when he signed up for an account, he might have a violation there, but I don't think violating the terms of an API is exactly a federal case. Generally companies just disable your key.
posted by empath at 9:44 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Although I've looked at the affiliate agreement and I don't see where this behavior is prohibited.
posted by empath at 9:46 AM on December 31, 2014


I don't think violating the terms of an API is exactly a federal case.

The feds have been pretty happy to interpret "unauthorized access" to cover violations of ToS.
posted by PMdixon at 9:47 AM on December 31, 2014


Direct link to complaint (via consumerist article) - seems like the trademark stuff (Lanham Act etc.) would be enough to get into federal court.

Here's also a UA Contract of Carriage to see what the "Section 6(J)" prohibitions (e.g. paragraph 109 from the Complaint) about "hidden city" tracking look like:
J) Prohibited Practices:
1) Fares apply for travel only between the points for which they are published. Tickets may not be purchased and used at fare(s) from an initial departure point on the Ticket which is before the Passenger’s actual point of origin of travel, or to a more distant point(s) than the Passenger’s actual destination being traveled even when the purchase and use of such Tickets would produce a lower fare. This practice is known as “Hidden Cities Ticketing” or “Point Beyond Ticketing” and is prohibited by UA.
...
Temporal (and legal) question - can you tortiously interfere with a contract before the buyer actually forms a contract with the airline? Or does the contractual relationship have to exist before you can tortiously interfere? Because if the latter, there's probably no actual contract until at least the buyer buys the ticket, right?
posted by cdefgfeadgagfe at 9:53 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


"Game the system" is a weird way to characterize what fliers are doing. Isn't the entire entire hodge-podge of airline fares a way to game the system, with the "system" being consumer preferences, and the "game" being increase market share and profits for the airline?
posted by benito.strauss at 10:03 AM on December 31, 2014 [4 favorites]


"Conspiracy to Commit Tortious Interference" sure sounds like a federal case to me.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:05 AM on December 31, 2014



1) Fares apply for travel only between the points for which they are published. Tickets may not be purchased and used at fare(s) from an initial departure point on the Ticket which is before the Passenger’s actual point of origin of travel, or to a more distant point(s) than the Passenger’s actual destination being traveled even when the purchase and use of such Tickets would produce a lower fare. This practice is known as “Hidden Cities Ticketing” or “Point Beyond Ticketing” and is prohibited by UA.


That is like saying you can't buy the soda on sale at three for the price of one unless you will drink all three in front of the store owner. Ridiculous.
posted by Dip Flash at 10:08 AM on December 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


Airlines have it in their heads - to the point of obsession - that FULL PLANES ARE MORE COST EFFECTIVE ABOVE ALL ELSE so they tweak prices to make sure that the extra flight is also full because that's good business right?

Actually, that's not how it works, and that fact has become a huge problem for connecting travelers since airlines have pushed their occupancy rates sky high. I can't find the article where I first saw this explained, but the concept is simple. Suppose an airline has only two flights, Fresno to San Francisco and San Francisco to London. The Fresno flight is fairly inexpensive and runs on a small aircraft, while the London flight costs a whole lot more and uses a 777. If the airline aggressively sells the Fresno flight and fills it up, there won't be any room on it for the much higher paying customer who wants to buy a last minute ticket for Fresno-London (via SFO). Similarly, if all the feeder flights to SFO (here we only have one) are full with local travelers, the London flight will be near-empty, as it will only have passengers from within the local driving distance of the airport.

In other words, in a hub-and-spoke system, there's a point where planes can be too full to maximize profit and traveler choice.
posted by zachlipton at 10:35 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Does anybody know where Skiplagged is getting its data feed? I looked for plane ticket APIs at one point and found they were all prohibitively expensive for indie sites like this.
posted by miyabo at 10:37 AM on December 31, 2014


If the airline aggressively sells the Fresno flight and fills it up, there won't be any room on it for the much higher paying customer who wants to buy a last minute ticket for Fresno-London (via SFO).

Except in these hidden city fares, the second flight is less expensive than the first flight.
posted by empath at 10:45 AM on December 31, 2014


More than a couple people donating 100$ on his gofundme page.

When you add people's love of free speech with their hatred for the airlines, you get a lot of passionate consumers.
posted by el io at 11:08 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Points 1 and 2 under 6(J) both basically say that if you buy the ticket you must take the ride. That doesn't sound like the sort of thing that can be legally enforceable.

Now if it can be shown that you bought the ticket without ever intending to take the ride and if furthermore it can be shown that your physical absence from the aircraft on any leg caused the airline material harm, you might have something, but that latter seems kinda hard to prove. What, was the plane off-balance and tipped its wing onto the runway because somebody's ass wasn't where the computer said it was gonna be?
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:10 AM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Basically it's like saying you can't buy the combo meal as a cheaper way of getting the burger and fries when you don't intend to drink the soda.

(Which by the way is exactly what I do. Soda is a horrible thing even by fast food standards but the burger and fries always cost more a la carte.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:18 AM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


George Spiggott: Ask for water, that way you get a drink of water in something larger than a dixie cup.

/derail.
posted by el io at 11:22 AM on December 31, 2014


That's it! If you just give the airline a jug of water to place in the seat you won't be occupying, everybody wins!
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:24 AM on December 31, 2014 [4 favorites]


It's amazing how many US companies think capitalism is the best thing in the world until that exact capitalism is used against them, at which point they demand the state put an end to it.
posted by Legomancer at 11:46 AM on December 31, 2014 [39 favorites]


Yes, the great bulk of of economic theory supposes a well-informed party acting in his own best interest. What we have here is an incumbent business model that cries "unfair" when its customers are well informed and act in their own best interest.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:59 AM on December 31, 2014 [9 favorites]


It's amazing how many US companies think capitalism is the best thing in the world until that exact capitalism is used against them, at which point they demand the state put an end to it.

Capitalism isn't a system founded on free and fair exchange between equals in a marketplace. Capitalism is a system that uses the idea of free and fair exchange in a hypothetical marketplace of equals to provide cover for the actual processes whereby the holders of capital extract value from people who have nothing to sell but their labor-time.

Using the force of law to ban tricks that consumers can use to get goods for cheaper than businesses want to sell them for in no way contradicts this process.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:31 PM on December 31, 2014 [18 favorites]


It's pretty easy for a big company to intimidate a person or small business with the threat of a lawsuit. Unlike large corporations, most people don't have a team of lawyers in their house waiting to kick ass at the drop of a hat.
posted by double block and bleed at 1:10 PM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's almost like the notion that a equality between a large multinational and an individual in terms of contracting is a myth! Whould would have thought!
posted by Carillon at 1:18 PM on December 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


okay but you're still sitting, incredibly, in a CHAIR, in the SKY.
posted by Ratio at 1:52 PM on December 31, 2014


heisenberg: "So if the complaint actually says $75k exactly (I can't find it online), the corporations' lawyers screwed up in a wonderfully hilarious way."

Not necessarily. If the plaintiff brought suit in state court, they may have pled this intentionally to avoid removal to fed court by the defendant based on diversity jurisdiction.
posted by Dr. Zira at 4:54 PM on December 31, 2014


I don't see how he's inducing anyone to break a contract.

It's stupid. All he's doing is providing information in one place. He's not inducing anyone to do anything. The info is out there anyway, and if a customer wanted to find it by other means to play games with tickets, they could.

On the other hand suing the kid is over the top and they need to get slammed hard for this.

Fuck 'em. They're assholes.
posted by BlueHorse at 4:54 PM on December 31, 2014


Dr. Zira: It was filed in federal court. But I've looked at the complaint now, and it does plead damages in excess of $75k, and they also included a federal question, so I don't get my corporate law schadenfreude today.
posted by heisenberg at 5:14 PM on December 31, 2014


Anytime a firm is charging something other than the marginal cost of a product, they're exploiting someone and need to be stomped on hard.
Or they've got huge upfront costs that need to be amortized somewhere. Huge jet planes that cost much more to build than to refuel, say. (For a more absurd case: imagine how much poorer the average author would be if they couldn't charge for the thousands of hours that went into writing a book, only for the price of paper or an ebook's bandwidth.)
posted by roystgnr at 7:49 PM on December 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I would guess that if the defendant should prevail it will be an empty victory--I have a certain admiration for the airline industry that colors my response--but should lose I have every confidence they will simply change their pricing structure to compensate for any loss of revenue/reduced costs they anticipate. The simple facts are:they move millions of people over even more millions of miles, at a very reasonable cost, with little profit, marginal control over some of their cost variables and in an incredible safe and efficient manner. Airlines deliver an extremely complex service and very close to cost and make travel affordable for millions of people who never imagined being able to travel to places that are now possible.
posted by rmhsinc at 4:50 AM on January 1, 2015


I found DAY to be one of the better airports in the country. Modern, clean, small, you walk to the rental cars. Much better than CVG. AUS in Texas is also a winner.


Absolutely. Plus whoever chooses the music there picks this fabulous early 80s soundtrack that was the music of my youth. Last time I flew to DAY I had Karma Chameleon in my head for the rest of the day.
posted by Cocodrillo at 5:23 AM on January 1, 2015


I'm quite fond of the Buffalo airport -- clean, small, walk to the rental cars, free 2-hr parking, pretty much right in town, really convenient to expressways, there's a place to eat outside of security.

Also what terminal is someone arriving in? The.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:12 AM on January 1, 2015


OK, here's an example I hit several times a year. Calgary-Houston is an expensive flight: just checked and I'm getting about a thousand dollars return for travel two weeks out, which is pretty typical (actually cheap, I've paid almost three grand for this flight). Calgary - Austin, connecting through IAH is almost exactly half the cost, five hundred dollars.

I'm trying to apply some of the explanations put forward above for this, but basically the only thing that makes sense is exploitation. YYC - IAH is a route dominated by cost insensitive travellers with inelastic demand (corporate travel for oil companies' staff). The Austin leg doesn't need any help filling, though, so I struggle to understand how that flight (YYC IAH AUS) is half the cost.
posted by bumpkin at 10:23 AM on January 1, 2015


sparklemotion: "I can't remember the route exactly, but it was something like YYZ-->ORD-->IND and I only wanted to got YYZ-->ORD and back."

please forgive me but I have a note from my doctor that allows me to do this
- . --- . ---- .. - . --- . ---- .. - . --- . ---- .. - . --- . ---- .. - . --- . ---- .. - . --- . ---- ..
(repeat ad nauseam infinitum on nearest glassware and/or set as ringtone)

\m/ \m/
posted by scrump at 4:35 AM on January 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, I'm late to the party too, but EXACTLY what damages is the airline incurring when they SELL THE SEAT, but don't carry a passenger in it? Lower labor and fuel costs?
posted by mikelieman at 5:10 AM on January 5, 2015


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