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The Courts Transportation Businesses The Almighty Buck

Lufthansa Sues Passenger Who Missed His Flight in an Apparent Bid To Clamp Down on 'Hidden City' Trick (cnn.com) 502

Airline Lufthansa has sued a passenger, who didn't show up for the last leg of his ticketed journey, in an apparent bid to clamp down on "hidden city" trick. From a report: The practice involves passengers leaving their journey at a layover point, instead of making a final connection. For instance, someone flying from New York to San Francisco could book a cheaper trip 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. According to a court document, an unnamed male passenger booked a return flight from Oslo to Seattle, which had a layover in Frankfurt. The passenger used all legs of the outbound flight, but did not catch the Frankfurt to Oslo return flight. He instead flew on a separate Lufthansa reservation from Frankfurt to Berlin. The report adds that a Berlin district court dismissed the case in December last year, but the airline company is now appealing that verdict. Worth noting here that United Airlines has also tried its luck on this front -- to no dice.
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Lufthansa Sues Passenger Who Missed His Flight in an Apparent Bid To Clamp Down on 'Hidden City' Trick

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  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:13AM (#58109786)

    What if you needed to go somewhere else because of an emergency? Should you really be forced to take every leg of a flight you have booked?

    If they don't want people getting off midway through a series of flights, maybe try not pricing an entire trip with multiple legs less than the individual flight to the city in the middle. Their own byzantine pricing system is what led to this result.

    If they were smart they'd take advantage of such travelers and allow them to cancel some of the legs after booking, as a way to illuminate pricing errors in the system. Then they'd have an open seat someone else could fill as well. Win -Win.

    • by lgw ( 121541 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:18AM (#58109816) Journal

      This passenger behavior is just a form of arbitrage. The airlines have created unequal markets for point-to-point travel, and some clever people are taking advantage. Arbitrage is as old as markets, is never going away, and almost always benefits consumers.

      The airlines are presumably hoping for some sort of regulatory capture to distort the market, but I don't see them having much luck with that in Europe. They'd have better luck buying a Senate committee here in the US.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        >The airlines are presumably hoping for some sort of regulatory capture to distort the market

        Or they re trying to give attention to the trial so people dont do it by fear of getting sued.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:04PM (#58110098)

        This passenger behavior is just a form of arbitrage.

        Don't you mean airbitrage?

        I'll see myself out ...

      • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @02:35PM (#58111062)

        The airlines are presumably hoping for some sort of regulatory capture to distort the market

        It's not regulatory capture which distorts the market. It's a quasi-monopoly. The places I've seen this behavior (missing a leg of a flight) benefit passengers most is at airports where one airline dominates - a hub. Back when Northwest was still around, Detroit was one of their hubs. Something like 80% of all the flights in and out of Detroit were Northwest. That reduced competition meant that Northwest had undue influence over the pricing for tickets in and out of Detroit. They exploited that to charge excessively high prices for tickets starting and ending in Detroit.

        But because Detroit was their hub, that meant a ton of flights between other cities made stopovers in Detroit to change planes. The other cities had plenty of competition so their fares were priced a lot closer to the airline's cost. That's what creates the opportunity for people to book flights between different cities at a lower price, and get off at Detroit (missing the last leg). So it's not strictly arbitrage per se, it's just bypassing the airline's quasi-monopoly pricing at a particular airport. (Higher pricing at airports with competition are usually due to fees charged by the different airports. e.g. Flights to/from Los Angeles International are cheaper than to/from Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario, or Orange County because the same agency operates all those airports but charges the lowest fees for LAX.)

        I used a similar tactic to visit my sister for free when she was at the University of Michigan, and I was in Boston. Whenever I flew home to visit my parents in California, I'd book a flight with a layover in Detroit, and deliberately maximize the layover time (which gave me about 4 hours there). My sister would meet me at the airport, we'd go out and have a meal together and talk and catch up, and I'd take any presents she wanted me to bring my parents.

        • by mjwx ( 966435 )

          The airlines are presumably hoping for some sort of regulatory capture to distort the market

          It's not regulatory capture which distorts the market. It's a quasi-monopoly. The places I've seen this behavior (missing a leg of a flight) benefit passengers most is at airports where one airline dominates - a hub. Back when Northwest was still around, Detroit was one of their hubs. Something like 80% of all the flights in and out of Detroit were Northwest. That reduced competition meant that Northwest had undue influence over the pricing for tickets in and out of Detroit. They exploited that to charge excessively high prices for tickets starting and ending in Detroit.

          You've also got to remember that part of your air fare is paying:
          1. The airport.
          2. The local fees and taxes.
          I'm not sure if they have to do this in the US, but over here in the UK the receipt details the additional taxes and fees you are paying. I had a flight last year between LHR and LAX for a bargain £312, over half of that were fees and taxes (not including VAT (sales tax) as we don't tax the tax component), the actual fare was £140.

          Different airports cost different amounts to use, if

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not a pricing error though, it's a "hay we noticed that there is insufficient competition on this route, so we can charge you more!" situation.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 )

        Not really... it is about charging a premium on hub-hub routes to subsidize the cost of more price sensitive outlying city-hub routes. The game makes the aviation market "fairer" for everyone. For the airline, it also dis-incentivizes taking flights in banks that are well timed for onward connections.-- go earlier or later and maybe the hub-hub flight is cheaper.

        But, when you are the flier, you might as well do everything you can to get a better deal. The airline isn't looking out for you.

        • Subsidies don't make it "fairer" for anyone. Fair is people paying for what they actually use, not a few paying less, and passing the costs onto everyone else.

          Subsidies always incur a cost of unintended consequences. Arbitrage is one of those unintended consequences, as the airlines have found out.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      If they don't want people getting off midway through a series of flights, maybe try not pricing an entire trip with multiple legs less than the individual flight to the city in the middle. Their own byzantine pricing system is what led to this result.

      It's not always done by airlines for shits and giggles. A lot of airports have frequency requirements for landing slots, so instead of flying completely empty planes on routes to preserve slot allocation (which does happen), they may offer reduced fares to those cities. The airlines may be giving up a revenue premium to generate demand in the other city to help offset the loss that would otherwise occur. This goes for smaller airports as well that may have government subsidies to increase access for smal

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm not really convinced on your last part. They scan tickets as you're boarding a flight, so would know if you weren't on it in the case of an accident.

      • by Cederic ( 9623 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:19PM (#58110216) Journal

        they are needing to drive traffic to that destination for some reason

        Maybe so, but buying an airline ticket in no way obliges you to use it.

        If anything you're saving them money through improved efficiency (fewer bags/people to board/disembark), greater safety (fewer people stampeding through an exit in an emergency), a superior experience for their other customers (more elbow room, fewer distractions for the cabin crew) and lower fuel costs because the aircraft is lighter.

        Shit, they should be paying him.

      • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:21PM (#58110232) Journal

        It's not always done by airlines for shits and giggles. A lot of airports have frequency requirements for landing slots, so instead of flying completely empty planes on routes to preserve slot allocation (which does happen), they may offer reduced fares to those cities.

        Your argument makes absolutely zero sense. If they flew an empty plane then they would make no passenger revenue for that flight. However, by reducing the cost of a ticket when the passenger flies an additional leg they will actually now have negative revenue because the passenger is paying less than they would have if they had got a ticket just to the hub.

        Your scenario provides motivation for not adding anything to the cost of the ticket to fly the extra leg (they are going to fly the plane anyway and the extra convenience might attract more passengers) but your argument provide no economic reason to reduce the cost of the ticket for flying an extra leg. I suspect the difference is because a different destination is a different market with different competitive pressures. So really it is just the airline trying to screw more money out of people staying near a hub because they know they will pay it.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:45PM (#58110366)

        Except this does't quite work in pricing.

        For shits and giggles, I just priced out a small airport to small airport, connecting at a large hub, one way trip:

        SCE - PHL - ABE
        Flight plan:
        Depart SCE @ 6:11AM, land In PHL @ 7:08AM
        Depart PHL @ 8:15AM, land in ABE @ 9:12AM
        Cost of ticket on American Airlines: $210

        Now let's just do SCE - PHL
        Flight plan:
        Depart SCE @ 6:11AM, land in PHL @ 7:08AM
        Cost of ticket on American Airlines: $447

        That's $237 less, or a savings of 53%. Just how much per person is being subsidized to an extremely large, national airline, even if it's from a smaller sub partner?
        I can tell you the actual flights are flowing by Piedmont Airlines as American Eagle...

        • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          Cost of ticket on American Airlines: $447

          That's $237 less, or a savings of 53%. Just how much per person is being subsidized to an extremely large, national airline, even if it's from a smaller sub partner? I can tell you the actual flights are flowing by Piedmont Airlines as American Eagle...

          The Essential Air Service program subsidized from $10-977 per passenger in 2014. Of course, from what I can see ABE and SCE aren't in EAS. I would say that part of it is that (I'm going to say "loss" as in the difference between the 2 fares, not necessarily that the ticket loses money) the loss from the SCE-PHL-ABE is spread between 2 flight segments and therefore the difference is mostly made up from other passengers.

          Aircraft also have minimum operating costs that must be covered (fuel, maintenance, et

          • I do not see how, in the above scenario (passenger books round trip flight from ABE-PHI-SCE and back), the airline loses any money if the passenger chooses not to take the last leg on the return trip.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You would think that they would have min-maxed the landing slot problem already and keep 2-3 regional jets, maybe even smaller turboprops around for just this purpose. I'm guessing the landing slot doesn't specify equipment, and it sounds a lot cheaper to me to fly a Saab turboprop with just a flight crew than a passenger jet running at marginal profitability load. The "slot only" plane has less fuel, doesn't need a flight attendant crew, and might even be able to get away with a junior pilot instead of a

    • They aren’t pricing errors. An airline prices based on the competition on a route, so if it costs x to go from A to C with a stop they may still price to compete with a nonstop flight on another carrier. That fare may be cheaper than a flight to the intermediate stop if their is a lot less competition on that route.
    • by wwphx ( 225607 )
      My wife did exactly this when her dad died. She flew El Paso -> Phoenix -> Cleveland, I joined her in Phoenix. When we returned I told her she was spending a few days with me in Phoenix (I was finishing up a contract) and I was driving her home.

      Screw the airlines. We just let that final leg go unused and eventually expire.
    • What if you needed to go somewhere else because of an emergency?

      The terms of service you agree to when you buy the ticket and enter into an agreement with the airline prohibits the "hidden city" type behavior, unless there is an emergency.

      In this particular case the person already had a reserved flight from the hidden city. He can't claim there was an emergency or the other exceptions that would release him from the TOS. It's right in the summary:

      He instead flew on a separate Lufthansa reservation from Frankfurt to Berlin.

      There was solid evidence showing he intended on breaking the terms of service and constructed his own route. To me this is

      • I don't know, I think having a paid flight somewhere that you'll miss counts as an emergency. You can argue that you probably shouldn't cause yourself emergencies, but that's really a personal choice, right?

    • Then they'd have an open seat someone else could fill as well.
      I was thinking the same exact thing. Considering how often airlines will pay passengers to get 'bumped' from their flights altogether, I'd think they'd actually make more money being able to sell that seat to someone else.
  • by Bugler412 ( 2610815 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:13AM (#58109788)
    Airlines build a pricing system that enables this sort of behavior then blames the customer for using it?
    • by The Original CDR ( 5453236 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:38AM (#58109928)
      It's a form of "gaming the system" that can cost someone else money. When the Sacagawea $1 coin first came out, people could use their credit card to order direct from the U.S. Mint. Some people figured out that they could accumulate points on their credit card by purchasing the coins, depositing the coins at the bank, and paying off the balance on their credit card. Do that enough times you could get a free vacation to Hawaii. That practice was soon put to an end by the U.S. Mint, as that was not how they wanted the coins to be circulated in the economy. The only time I see those coins is when I get change from a government vending machine.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        the airlines should take a tip from the mint then and end their insane pricing practices. notice the mint didn't sue anyone for perfectly legal activity just because it wasn't what they wanted. they where the ones to change not the customer.

      • by Colin Castro ( 2881349 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:06PM (#58110116)

        It was a short lived scam, the real issue was that they government didn't stop printing paper dollars.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Scam implies that something illegal was taking place, but that wasn't the case. The Mint made something available for sale, the credit card companies offered points, and the banks accepted the coins as legal tender. It was a clever way to accumulate points that took advantage of certain incentives offered, nothing more, nothing less.

      • by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:10PM (#58110136) Journal

        It's a form of "gaming the system" that can cost someone else money.

        How? Provided the passenger had no checked bags (which would be really hard to get back so I doubt this was the case) there is no way that not taking a flight results in a higher cost to the airline, in fact the exact opposite is going to be true since they can save on fuel.

        As I understand it an air ticket is a contract you purchase from the airline that they will transport you between two locations on a certain set of flights. You have not promised that you will take the flights you have merely purchased the right to take those flights. If you decide at any point not to take a flight then, while you forfeit the cost of the ticket, there is nothing they can do. If not then this would mean that, in addition to forcing you to buy another ticket, the airline could sue any passenger who failed to turn up for even the start of a flight e.g. due to traffic delays etc. Good luck to any airline that starts doing that!

    • Airlines build a pricing system that enables this sort of behavior then blames the customer for using it?

      I'm trying to figure out how suing your customers is ever going to be a winning business strategy.

      I'm favorably inclined toward Lufthansa but someone needs to be hit by a giant foam cluebat.

  • by FeelGood314 ( 2516288 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:13AM (#58109790)
    This is a huge loss to the industry. Before they could threaten people or at least claim that people must fly the entire route. Once they went to court though, they actually had to prove it and in losing more people will use the "hidden city" work around. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the airlines. Many of their tricks to determine how much I will pay for a flight are morally questionable.
    • by stealth_finger ( 1809752 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:46AM (#58109984)
      They still got paid the asking price, what does it matter if the passenger is actually there or not? Surely if anything that would save the airline a tiny bit of fuel costs.
    • Many of their tricks to determine how much I will pay for a flight are morally questionable.

      I'm sure there's an algorithm behind airline pricing. I'd love to know what it is. I'd love to just know what the inputs are, never mind what computation happens with those inputs.

      Specifically, I assume the airlines have actually figured out that their obtuse pricing actually maximizes their revenue and profits. The odd prices must have some benefit (e.g. the plane is being repositioned so any seat they sell is a win). That being said, I find it difficult to envision how selling a ticket but not having a pa

  • by crow ( 16139 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:15AM (#58109796) Homepage Journal

    My only hesitation in doing this would be that if they force people to gate-check bags to the final destination, you're in big trouble. You can mitigate that risk by selecting seats that board earlier and by showing up early, but it's still a risk.

    • From what I understand, people who usually do this only take a carry on.
    • My only hesitation in doing this would be that if they force people to gate-check bags to the final destination, you're in big trouble.

      You usually know before you even leave for the airport if this is likely to be a problem for you. Most trips I've taken lately have only needed a modest amount of cary on luggage my bag easily fits in the seat in front of me if there is no room overhead. Worst case is that I lose some leg room but I won't have to check anything no matter what. I knew that before I left for the airport.

  • What? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:15AM (#58109800)

    Seriously... what? So an airline gets someone to pay for a ticket and they save the airline money by not taking up space and weight... presumably someone could have flown on standby also so there is potential for the airline to double dip if someone doesn't show up for their flight... and they are pissed 'cause their pricing model didn't account for people who might want to actually go to the layover city. They aren't losing money by someone paying for, but not fully utilizing the service. The airlines should be liable for court costs plus penalty if they pull this shit.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:32AM (#58109906)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:15AM (#58109804)

    So airlines have idiotic pricing policies and somehow this is the fault of the passengers for taking advantage of the airline's lunacy? It is entirely within their power to make this money saving trick go away by simple charging the sum of all the rates for each leg of the flight.

    It's not clear to me why they would care. They have their money and if they don't have to transport the passenger on that leg then they save fuel or they can put someone else in the seat since they seem to always overbook flights anyway.

    The report adds that a Berlin district court dismissed the case, but the airline company is now appealing that verdict.

    It's certainly not illegal and it's not clear the passenger had any sort of contractual obligation to fly the entire distance of the flight.

    • it's not clear the passenger had any sort of contractual obligation to fly the entire distance of the flight.

      When he bought his ticket he agreed that he would board every flight at the scheduled time or else pay a cancellation service charge. It's part of most airlines terms and conditions. The questions to decide are "is this clickwrap agreement a contract?" and "is a clause that says if you miss your flight for any reason, the airline can charge you any amount they choose, an unconscionable clause?"

      • When he bought his ticket he agreed that he would board every flight at the scheduled time or else pay a cancellation service charge.

        Terms of agreements have to be agreed to by both parties. Sounds like a German court found that such a contract was not valid for some reason. My guess is that it was thrown out at least in part because the airline cannot show that they were harmed in any way. And just because they have a contract does not automatically mean that contract is legally valid. There are lots of reasons why a contract might be held to be unenforceable.

        It's part of most airlines terms and conditions.

        Here are Lufthansa's terms and conditions [lufthansa.com]. I see nothing about the passen

  • by anonieuweling ( 536832 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:17AM (#58109812)
    The plane for the final leg was lighter due to the passenger not actually flying.
    This saved some fuel.
    What is the problem for the airline? (other people accused the pricing system)
    • Well, suppose every passenger on a certain route does this. This means that they would have to fly with an empty aircraft. The aircraft still has to fly, because of the planning. Once the news gets out that they are flying with empty aircraft, this would be a huge drawback on their imago with respect to sustainability. Mind you, that imago is not that positive to begin with. Off course the real problem is their pricing, so they are to blame for needless pollution. They do not want that to come out.
  • by acoustix ( 123925 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:18AM (#58109826)

    In my experience many flights are overbooked (which I think is an asshole move by the airline). The passenger paid for a ticket and then didn't use it? How are they losing money? Either the seat is empty for the last leg of the flight, saving the airline on fuel. Or the airline can resell the seat or give it to an overbooked passenger.

    If the airlines are going the legal route for this BS, then just wait for an onslaught of justified passenger lawsuits by of crappy industry practices.

    • They consider they're losing money because the flight to the midpoint, booked by itself, would cost more than the longer flight. They're out the difference.
      Of course, they're full of crap, but that's their logic.

      • Are they? Because he would have paid the same whether he was there or not. In terms of book-keeping - they lost nothing.

        I mean put it this way - if you pay for a flight and don't show up at all - would they take you to court?

    • by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:00PM (#58110082) Homepage

      I agree totally, since airlines basically always (I think the OP was generous in saying "many flights" are) overbook then isn't somebody doing this actually providing the airline with an opportunity to avoid a negative experience for another customer?

      And, if this is the case, shouldn't the customer be rewarded rather than sued?

  • So I buy a dozen-stop flight around the world at obviously a reduced price.
    Then I get off at the first city we land at.
    I paid plenty, the plane is lighter.
  • by uncqual ( 836337 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:21AM (#58109852)

    The airline saved money on fuel by not hauling the passenger and his luggage on the last leg. Perhaps, they even filled that seat with a last minute full-fare standby passenger. Even if they were legally correct, what damages did they incur by the passenger breaching their contract?

    • Also, what performance did the passenger fail to perform? He paid money in exchange for a seat on an airplane. Doesn't sound like he wanted a refund or anything, he paid his money, then chose not to avail himself of the service.
    • The damages are the difference in price of the tickets for the actual route the customer flew.

      If this hadn't been dismissed, those damages theoretically would be offset by the savings in fuel and/or standby passenger who got the seat.

      • by uncqual ( 836337 )

        Those aren't damages as the airline didn't incur any loss from the passenger's action - the airline happily sold tickets for N legs, the passenger only used N-1 legs thereby saving the airline money and, perhaps, giving them an opportunity to even make a lot of additional money if they sold the unclaimed seat to a full fare standby passenger.

        Suppose I buy a gallon of milk from the store knowing that I'm only going to use three quarts of it but the one-gallon package is cheaper than three one-quart packages

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Nkwe ( 604125 )

      what damages did they incur by the passenger breaching their contract?

      If a passenger doesn't show up for the last segment of a flight, the airline has to make the decision that the passenger is not going to show up and act the airline has to act on that decision before the plane departs. The decision involves if the airline should wait for the passenger and potentially delay the flight, give or sell the seat to a standby passenger, or leave the seat empty. The airline also as to check to ensure that no bags were checked, as if there were bags checked they generally have to be

      • by uncqual ( 836337 )

        I don't recall commercial airlines delaying flights simply because a passenger never checks in (either themselves or their luggage - which I assume is the case here). It happens on most every flight and that's why if a flight is fully booked on a large plane, it will almost always end up with standby passengers. The passenger's actions certainly didn't inconvenience other passengers -- they have no idea the seat was booked. It may also offer a great convenience to another passenger -- the one who snagged th

      • A bag can fly without its passenger, but ONLY if it's INTENSIVELY searched by hand (and X-ray, bomb-sniffers, etc) beforehand, or the passenger is on board A flight & had no reason to suspect his bag(s) wouldn't be on the same plane.

        Otherwise, it would be impossible to send mishandled bags on the next flight to their proper destination. You'd have to wait for a cargo flight or FedEx to take it.

        Airlines try to avoid doing it because they have to REALLY examine & repack baggage that gets sent this way

  • by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:25AM (#58109874) Journal

    What could go wrong?

  • by Lucas123 ( 935744 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:25AM (#58109878) Homepage

    Airlines charge you for food, for blankets for baggage (believe it or not, they never used to). Like banks, which now earn more through fees than interest or investments with your money, Airlines are basing more and more of their revenue on fees. So, here we have an airline upset that they couldn't squeeze one more passenger into a seat on a flight.

    Hey, Lufthansa, the passenger paid for the flight; it's not your prerogative to force him/her to take every leg.

    I hope the court rules against the airline.

    • Airlines charge you for food, for blankets for baggage (believe it or not, they never used to). Like banks, which now earn more through fees than interest or investments with your money, Airlines are basing more and more of their revenue on fees.

      They always charged for that, it was just built into the fare. Pre-regulation their fares were set by the government based on distance and covered all costs and a profit. With deregulation and price competition airlines unbundled to offer cheap fares and now charge extra for stuff that used to be in the base price. I like that because I don't have to pay for stuff I don't need, like a checked bag.

  • I had a girlfriend once visiting, who had an outbound flight from LA to Japan with a layover in San Francisco. We had decided to drive up to San Francisco, so we called and asked what would happen if she missed the LA flight and simply got on in San Francisco. They told us it was illegal, and she wouldn't be booked. According to them, we HAD to drag her back to LA.
    So we did the only logical thing.
    We took her to the airport in San Francisco and got her boarding pass for the flght to Japan before the flight f

  • I think, as a condition for the airlines to sue for missed flights, they should no longer be allowed to overbook. Otherwise, they're setting up a situation where they can sue all the passengers they didn't have seats for.

  • by Pimpy ( 143938 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:47AM (#58109988)

    It's their own fault for artificially inflating prices based on the route rather than the costs incurred. Travelling from Munich to Brussels for example often costs as much as an overseas flight, while the same route with a layover in Brussels and a termination in Amsterdam costs 1/4 the price. If they wish to gouge people based on what they think someone is willing to pay, it is no surprise that people find workarounds.

    They have already tried tactics like refusing to let you board your return flight if you didn't complete all the legs on the outbound, which is now also being challenged in court.

  • by ledow ( 319597 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @11:49AM (#58110012) Homepage

    If it's cheaper to NOT TAKE A FLIGHT for the customer, what the hell are you selling? You have literally saved money - the customer paid, didn't use part of their trip, didn't cost you fuel and loading time, and if you had half a brain they would have been able to do that AND tell you that the last seat would be unoccupied, which you could then legitimately sell on to a last minute customer and make EVEN MORE money.

    It's like a customer buying a 3-for-the-price-of-2 offer, binning the 3rd free item because they only needed two, and then you trying to sue them to use that third item.

    It's not like they gave it away. It's not like someone else turned up expecting to sit in that seat and couldn't. It's not like they committed fraud by having someone else come along and take their place on the final leg. Your prices literally make it more viable to NOT utilise a part of the service that they could do so, for "free" (after they'd paid all the bits they did use), and you save some small amount of money in the process (and someone else gets an empty seat to enjoy on the flight).

    Use your brains, change your pricing structure and/or allow people to flag such seats as "unused even though I got it as part of the deal" and then you could make a killing selling just that seat on to someone else as per your normal booking system.

    Much easier is to just not price that way. It's not like that passenger not coming onto that flight (i.e. not saying they will board at all, so you're not even looking for them) has cost you any money in any way, shape or form by not appearing - so you've basically given them a flight they didn't want, for free, and then complained they didn't use it.

  • Simplify their pricing structure.

    But no! This would stop them from milking every last cent out of the people who fly in their little "You must be a contortionist" chambers.

  • The court decision can be found here: https://www.franz.de/fileadmin/user_upload/urteil_ag_mitte_anonymisiert.pdf

    The decision back then argued that LH can actually put in their Conditions of Carriage that if a leg of the flight is not taken, LH has the right to charge a price difference.
    The reasons why it did not accept the argument:
    * there is no transparency as to how the price difference is calculated. The passenger cannot check anywhere online what the equivalent price would be without the last leg, thus

  • by Strider- ( 39683 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:23PM (#58110246)

    I once needed to be in Europe twice within a three week period for two different clients. As I booked my travel, I noticed that I could book Europe->North America fares a lot cheaper than North America -> Europe, and also that if I stayed at least 1 weekend, the trip was also much cheaper. So what I did was book the bookends of the two trips on one fare (round trip NA->EU->NA) then booked a second trip (EU->NA->EU) in the middle so I could come home.

    It all went off pretty well when I flew it, and I saved a significant chunk of my employer's money with the trick. A couple of months later, though, I got a nastygram from the Airline chastising me for violating the fare rules. Given that I was a 100k frequent flyer at the time, I replied back, CC'ing the appropriate people in the frequent flyer program that I didn't appreciate the tone of their letter, and that had I known it would have been a problem, i would have hapily either stayed in Europe for the 5 days, or booked it on another airline, thereby denying them the revenue of the additional flight.

    I later got an apology, and a token amount of miles to "make things right"

  • by Superdarion ( 1286310 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @12:24PM (#58110252)

    I once booked a return flight from Bergen (Norway) to somewhere in Mexico. Once there, I had to change my plans and wouldn't be going back to Bergen, but staying in Munich, where I had a layover.

    When I first got to the airport in Mexico, I told the people at the counter about it, just so they would know and not wait for me at the Munich airport, and the employee at the counter told me that making any changes to my reservation would cost $300 USD. He wouldn't budge, so I just walked away in Munich (I had no checked luggage). What the hell do they expect?

  • There is something very, very wrong with the airline market if it costs less to take more legs.
  • by Misagon ( 1135 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @01:28PM (#58110708)

    Lufthansa who are doing this in Germany, and United Airlines who tried this in the USA are both members of the Star Alliance [wikipedia.org].
    They share programs, procedures and booking system with each other while not competing on the same routes, even though several of them both land and take off in the Germany.
    Lufthansa is therefore not suing for creating precedence just for itself, but on behalf of all of its members.

    So, if you'd want to boycott Lufthansa and/or United Airlines for this stunt, then you would probably want to boycott all of them.
    Besides those two mentioned, they are:
    Adria Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air India, Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways, Asiana Airlines, Austrian Airlines. Avianca, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Croatia Airlines, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Swiss International Air Lines, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines.

  • by Macdude ( 23507 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2019 @01:56PM (#58110876)

    Let's look at a Happy Meal Analogy:
    At McWendKing a burder is $5, fries $3 and soft drink $4. They also sell a Happy Meal (burder, fries and soft-drink) for $7. So I buy a Happy Meal, eat the burder and fries but leave the soft-drink cup on the pick up counter -- then the restaurant sues me for not filing my cup up at the fountain.

The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep.

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