What Skiplagging Is & Why Its Been In The News So Much Recently
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2023
- Skiplagging. It’s controversial. It’s a headache for airlines. And it’s something that really divides the internet!
Recently, American Airlines filed a lawsuit against the travel website Skiplagged for unauthorized sales of the airline's low-cost tickets. The lawsuit referred to the practice of skiplagging as a quote "classic bait and switch" which is affecting the carrier's revenue for seats on a flight. So, for todays video, let’s look at this particular case, along with a few others, and discuss the controversial practice of skiplagging.
Article: simpleflying.com/skipplagging...
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Airlines can prevent all skiplagging by just restructuring their pricing to remove the incentive.
Unfortunately thereby harming (competitive lower airfares) the intended customers actually wanting to go to the final destination.
@@ericgeorge7874 They don't need to increase the prices of the cheap fairs. They need to decrease the prices of the expensive fairs. Nobody would pay more.
@@GoatTheGoatwhy decrease and leave money on the table?
@@Akislav1990 Yes, if they want to stop their customers from skiplagging.
To fix it the should go to a air mileage system. .30 a mile
I agree with the conclusion: If I have paid for the seat, I have the option of leaving it empty.
Totally! Does any other business think it's entitled to try to force you to use the whole of what you bought? No, of course not, once it's yours, you do with it whatever you want.
@@ianbk"while they search for you"? Not sure who you fly with, but in my experience there isn't an airline in the world that will actually delay a flight looking for a passenger. Sure, they'll call your name a few times, but won't miss their departure slot for a no-show passenger.
@@ianbk The rules say if you are not at the gate by a certain time, you forfeit your seat. They do not have to wait.
Except iPhone 😂@@pipmitchell7059
I'm would prefer a quick turn around time
In the news tomorrow: "Restaurant sues customer after he does not eat the desert he paid for!"
Very different situation here.
He wanted attention
Actually it’s a pretty good analogy. You go for the ‘fixed price’ menu, three courses for say 20 pounds/dollars/yen whatever. You choose a starter and a main course that on the a la carte menu would cost 21 whatevers. Once you’ve eaten those two courses the apple pie arrives and you tell the waiter that you don’t want it. You’ve saved a pound but a portion of apple pie is wasted. The difference being you can’t put an empty airline seat in a doggy bag 😉
I've seen all you can eat places that will have an extra charge for excessive uneaten food left on the plate.
@@heidirabenau511 I don't see how. In both cases, the customer paid a price that covered the full service but chose to use only part of it. In fact, to carry the restaurant analogy further, restaurants will often sell a table d'hote that includes soup, main course, beverage and dessert for less than they would charge if you ordered each of those items separately. They don't complain, though, if you decide to skip one of the elements of the meal.
When the airline sells a ticket for a specific seat for a multi lagged flight for a specific amount of money (set by the airline), it forgoes any addition income generated from that specific seat. Whether the seat is vacant for a portion of the flight or not should be irrelevant; the airline got its revenue full, thus it lost nothing.
Spot on!
The airline got less money than if someone had say booked one of those flights.
@@heidirabenau511 The airline got all the money they asked for.
On top of this, it actually costs the airline LESS. The person pays for the ticket but doesnt use any flight commodities, makes the plane lighter via luggage and themself, saving fuel, and also doesnt consume any on flight food. Also makes it easier to clean the plane
I would even go so far as to say that they're actually winning because the plane with empty seats weights less, leading to fuel savings.
A problem of the airlines own making. If they didn’t charge more for travelling less, there wouldn’t be a need to travel short.
Airlines aren’t selling specific flights, but rather journeys from Point A to B. When someone wants to go to B, the airline might only offer direct flights to C when another airline has a direct flight to B, but the airline still wants to compete with the airline that can go directly A-B. They are NOT selling A-C as the journey, but A-B. A-C as a journey may be less competitive, so the going rate might be somewhat different.
bla bla bla@@brianbeach3024
Yes and no, the airline may want to make a flight with a stop over to compete with a non stop option.
@@brianbeach3024 Any ‘journey’ with stopovers or changes is simply multiple smaller flights bundled as one. Just like round trip fares.
Consumers logically do not expect a longer journey that travels through their intended destination to cost less than one that terminates there. They don’t care about the logistics and politics or accounting of the industry; they just want to save money. So when they see that a ‘journey’ from A-C via B is cheaper than a flight from A-B, they book the cheapest option and travel short.
@@brianbeach3024 Cost for the airline is not for journey, but for a flight. And it's additive (fuel, crew, airport fees and so on), so logically airline should sell you a ticket for cost + profit (some percentage of their costs). If their costs are lower (single flight instead of more) total price should also be lower. They got too greedy and it backfired
It seems immoral, but then so does selling 200 seats on a 190 seat plane. Is it just me? Or do the airlines want it all their own way?
That's normal. Especially budget airlines. 150 seart plane? Sell 220.
Well yeah, you say that, but it's always a poor unsuspecting fare paying passenger that get arrested for wanting the seat they paid for. How is it right. Utterly immoral.@@quartzcyanis
@@quartzcyanis Some fact checks on the numbers please.
Why not overbook when a certain number are no-show out of many reasons. I can tell you that the overwhelming majority or overbooked flights go on without an issue. Most of the time no one will even notice
@@grahamnash9794 that's how it is, I suppose.
The airline's reason of wasting a seat that can be used by someone else in need is hilarious when you consider how airlines overbook every flight and bump (or drag) the passenger in need to go to that destination.
absolutely!
I cannot remember a flight in a long time when at least one passenger didn't show up for a flight. I think there have been enough flights that the airlines have a pretty good handle on the number of people that buy a ticket compared to who actually show up for the plane and I will wager the number is not 100%. It seems to me like the choice is "Sell the exact number of tickets as seats available and have a plane take off with an empty seat or two for no shows" or "Over sell the plane by a couple of seats so that the no shows make room for the overbooked passengers." In case A nobody is ever bumped and some people don't make a flight because no seats were available. In case B, more people actually get to go when they wanted." It feels to me like case B is the greater good, especially since bumped flyers have to be compensated for being bumped.
Right?! Airlines really really really care about passengers! 😂😂
Yeah, they’re so full of shit
If you skiplag it's actually more considerate for the other passengers because they can just bump you off that leg when they want to give way your seat instead of dragging someone off the plane who actually wants to make the journey.
That a company is allowed to refuse a fairly expensive and essential service after you have paid for it but can also ban you for not using their service is just absurd.
If airlines don’t want this to happen, they need to stop overcharging us for the shorter leg!
No surprises that big business doesn't like getting screwed, but they'll defend to the end of the eternity screwing over the consumer - see overselling of flights, which is heck of more inconvient then an empty seat.
They are not getting screwed. They don’t need to deliver all of what they sold, what’s the problem?
Skip lagging would probably cause airlines to overbook more
@@bokhans They still put the fuel in, the meal for that person, and they can't sell that seat, so they're spending money for someone who's not even on the flight. The issue is not the passenger getting off (at least not the biggest one), but the fact that due to that, they can't book the second leg of that flight for another passenger, who might need that flight, due to the fact that the passenger going from A to C who went off at B also booked the trip from B to C. They could've also sold a flight from A to B for much more than they did, so they're losing money anyway.
@@agent_doubl3188 1. i paid for the meal, 2. i paid for the fuel, 3. why they want to sell a seat i already paid for? all a bunch of excuses....
They made the cheap fair this way for a reason that benefits them, no the traveler finds away to reverse it (LOOPHOLE), now they upset
I don't remember customers ever beating up United execs because they were skiplagging.
If your pricing is incentivizing consumers to do this, it isn't their fault for taking advantage. Fix the pricing and the 'problem' begins to go away.
It's like a restaurant selling a sandwich for $10 or two sandwiches for $8.
They can't complain about the empty seat. They've already sold it. They're trying to argue they have a right to sell it twice! They set the price for the second leg, empty seat or not.
I think that's what bugs me the most: if you DON'T skiplag, then you're in the seat; it wouldn't be sold.
A better argument would be to show whether it throws off metrics for a destination's popularity, which could affect planning in the long term, but only if the skiplag volume is high enough.
First, the airlines have sued to try to stop skiplagging. They lost, twice. All it is gonna take to force the issue is someone suing the airline for cancelling a ticket for doing so.
Airlines are "common carriers", which means they can legally refuse customers only for compelling reasons. So they will probably lose if they cancel tickets or refuse to sell tickets to known skiplagging customers.
Skiplagging was used during covid by New Zealanders stranded overseas trying to get back into the country. The government was controversially blocking even NZ citizens from entering by telling Airlines not to allow bookings. However Air New Zealand was still operating and many of its international flights had stopovers in Auckland. So you could book a flight from the US to Australia say, with a stopover in Auckland, and then simply refuse to reboard for the last leg of the flight.
If the government was preventing citizens from entering NZ, how would skiplagging get around this? Couldn’t such people simply be prevented by passport control from entering the country, leaving them stuck in the airport?
@@Sashazur they can't because they are a citizen of New Zealand
@@Sashazurfrom the information in comments alone, I suspect the new Zealand government didn't actually make it illegal to come in, they simply asked the airlines to prevent it.
Most layovers are in Australia, cos NZ is further from the US. It seems strange to go backwards.
@@KarenNg0909NZ is closer. You'd fly west, not east.
The airlines are blowing smoke. They create the pricing - they must bear the results. The claim about checked bags is clearly rubbish.
The airline may want to compete, by providing cheaper flights with a stop over, with a non stop option.
My uneducated opinion on this is that checked bags having to be off-loaded for a passenger not on board is a safety protocol in response to Philippine Flight 434, where a parcel intentionally left behind by a terrorist detonated on board. And if the parcel is in the very nether regions of the aircraft, good luck getting to your destination on time.
@@itsskip true, but someone using this fare dodge going to the first stop won't normally have checked a bag.
That is a rather valid point. I would assume most people would be wise enough not to do that. Not sure if I should feel bad or not for the person who does have a checked bag.@@bishwatntl
@@itsskip It also due to the Lockerleed Scotland bombing as well (that individual never boarded the flight (initial of multi-leg). The 9/11 ingrained it into national regulations - this is why the "gate close" time on your boarding card is 1/2 hour (more for international to/from the U.S. and the EU); to allow off loading of bags.
What is actually revealed here is that is has been made difficult to approach 'customer service' at the intermediate aiport and say 'sorry I need to leave'. The excuse is irrelevant... whether you had a death in the family, or just changed your mind. They need to have real customer service and say - 'thanks for letting us know, we hope to see you flying with us again'.
The fact that you can;t do this is why there are people ghosting their flights
Excellent point!
You do not need to approach anyone. Just get off the plane and leave the airport. That’s how airports work. And if you do approach someone they obviously cannot prevent you from leaving if you want to.
@@SashazurSure, but the crew may unnecessarily hold the flight on the assumption that you are coming back and just got delayed. One of the airline complaints is that skiplagging screws up their schedule by making the plane wait around for a passenger that isn't coming back, and that's a legitimate problem, but it's easily fixable by not punishing people for coming over to say "Hey, I'm out."
If you could just openly tell them you're leaving, then the flight could go ahead and move on without worrying that they've stranded a customer, maybe even leave early if the rest of the passengers are ready and they get a slot for it.
@Keenath that is the point.. real customer service is about communication... not blame.
Once you formally relinquish your seat(s) they can do what they want with proper information... leave... or even stand by someone else to the flight
@danielsimons5706 yes, i was responding to Sashazur saying you needn't tell anyone. I'm agreeing with you.
skiplagging is frown upon by the industry, but at the same time they are more than happy to sell your seat to someone else despite you showing up
Exactly.. its reallly hard to feel bad for airlines when they're happy to overbook constantly
@@mapper7310feel bad for airlines? I never feel bad for those greedy companies. If a customer has paid for the ticket, they paid for the entire way through. Keeping the seat empty is their decision. Not to mention, airlines anyways overbook so that seat isnt even going to waste. They just dont like that the average person is saving money without getting screwed by their BS.
@@boejiden7093 same here, always thought they're happy to fuck over customers but as soon as the customers get a slight advantage they crack down on it
Airlines complaining about an empty seat on the second leg or checked bags sounds like excuses, as the seats are paid for and skiplaggers don’t check luggage. What they actually care about is the price difference (what they would deem a loss) between the skiplagged ticket price and the direct ticket price. This seems obvious, why not just say it?
The airlines are crony, predatory business corporations. They want to make super normal profits at all cost, even though they know the seats have been fully paid for already for that journey by the previous passenger. 😂
The seat would have been sold for a much higher price, so is lost revenue.
I promise to not skiplagg if the airlines promise not to overbook flights.
They could've sold the second leg of the flight to someone else who might need that flight. Of course they only care about the money they're losing thats literally how they make money. Also, the fuel and the meal for that person would've been loaded into the flight, so they lose even more money (of course the fuel difference for one person isn't much, but if you do it as a group, or multiple people do it, it comes expensive).
The point is that all that you mention has already been paid for by the original skiplagger!@@agent_doubl3188
I skiplagged before it had a name - the flights I took from Vancouver to San Jose,. CA always made a stop at Portland, OR. On my way home, my family wanted to go on a trip through Oregon, so I simply left at Portland. My flight was seriously delayed and while they were booking to make sure everyone made their connections, I told the gate agent to not bother with my ticket - just let me handle it form Oregon. Since it meant lightening her load (one less passenger to worry about!) she just checked me to Oregon and that's it. I think if you have a tight connection and a delayed flight, you could ask the gate agent that you'll figure out your own way - they're usually so overloaded trying to book other people, they will be happy to have one less issue to deal with. The company paid for the full trip, I made only half the trip and the remaining ticket went unused. I didn't bother getting it refunded. So I left at Portland, joined up with my family and had a nice post-business trip vacation. And yes, I believe it should be legal - after all, you never have to take everything offered. You buy a meal at a fast food joint, you can say "no fries" if you want, or "small fries" instead of taking the default medium. Or if they offer you a buy 1 get 1 free, you're free to not take your "free" item. Skiplagging is the same - you purchased something, and you're not using all of it. Any other industry that happens often and they deal with it. Don't want the free ice cream cone? You're free not to take it.
I think the difference here is you notified the airline in circumstances where you were being delayed to then cancel the rest of your ongoing flight, so that allowed them to then fill the seat you vacated with someone who was going to the destination you skipped out on. Skiplagging as described is when the airline can't fill that seat as it's still registered to a passenger who left early, whereas you spoke to representatives to void the rest of your flight.
@@desshinta9428I think one way for airlines to fight it is if they have a deposit program. You pay for the more expensive shorter trip, but if you do your full itinerary then you get your deposit back.
The airlines are out of luck going against the passengers. If you do not advertise it openly you can always say: "I did not feel well/felt sick" you can even let the airline know with this excuse, then they will not have to wait at the gate
That was my initial thought too, say you saw a gremlin on the wing and John Lithgow on the flight so don't feel safe.
No. You don't have to tell the airlines anything. Those seats have been fully paid for by the passenger, who didn't return to complete the journey for whatever reason. The airlines are just greedy. They want to earn more money for selfish reasons. However, one way to resolve this is to give back a small percentage of the airfare to whoever drops off, and didn't complete the journey. That way they will know an empty seat is available on board the plane for new passengers.
As a frequent non-rev standby passenger, please skiplag more often! More seats for us!
We do it to save money and time for ourselves. The companies can kick rocks thinking people will stop.
@@iandean1112if you think skip lagging is okay,then any delays that follow are no problem.
Honestly Its rare that I find a skiplag that's actually the cheapest overall, I doubt it has a large impact.
It only works if your flying to a hub airport like Atlanta or Dallas. If you’re trying to get to, say, Atlanta from Indianapolis, it’s probably cheaper to book a flight on Delta from Indianapolis to Jacksonville via Atlanta, then just not take the Jacksonville flight. Going from the hub airport to somewhere else would get you immediately caught since you wouldn’t board the first flight
Airlines believe in this quote from Tesco "Every little helps"
I booked an SAS flight from IAD-CPH for about 600 USD. I could have flown IAD-CPH-HAM for 450 USD, leaving enough to take the train back to CPH, but I didn't want to lose 5 hours of vacation time.
I don't understand how this can be a divisive topic. You buy a product, you pay for it. How you use that product is absolutely up to you. Airlines are being ridiculous and pathetic with trying to avoid this.
You don't buy a product and do what you want with it. You get fake money from your job, it gets "transferred" to any business you deal with. You shut up and do what the business tells you. Land of the free!
The part of the video that says airlines have Wait until every passenger boards? Then also have to remove the luggage. This means delayed flights. And we all know how much people but h about delayed flights.
@@HAFBeast91and most that are doing this aren't leaving luggage so...
The practical problems for passengers can be solved by the airlines. If airlines allow skiplag passenger to notify them, without penalty before or at initial check-in, that they will be terminating early, the airline solves the issue of skiplagging causing delays. The airlines don't want to do that though because it might look like they are condoning the practice.
skiplagging for 20 years now, a few tips:
1. Buy one ticket to go and your return ticket seperarly, if you skiplag on your way to destination, all other tickets from that same purchase, including your return tickets will be cancelled.
2. only bring carry-on as your checked bags will end at the final ticket destination.
3. You might get re-routed thru a different lay-over city if your first flight is cancelled or over-booked so have a back-up plan and check most popular lay-over cities.
4. Don't use frequent flier or any other program where it will be easy for an airline to track your travelling habits.
Airlines have become busses of the sky so they should operate as such.
This will continue to be tested against the airlines. It's up to you to do what you want with your ticket. It's stupid for them to think that they have some sort of a reasonable argument if you decide you want to get off the flight and not complete it. They need to fix their system and they're mad that we figured out a way to work within their broken system.
all they will do is to get police to force you to stay in your seat, the same way they force overbooked passengers off planes, they will forcibly confine people to continue a flight (and issue arrest warrants/blacklist bans so people can't leave the airport/customs control, like they are terrorists in the name of safety). Just wait, inside of a few years one of the big airlines will start to do this.
That and the Y-up cheat I been using for years - it where I purchase what seems to be an economy ticket but end up in first/business as a result. Business travelers has corrupted the whole system because they don't want to pay the "true price" and the airlines want keep these kind of useless people loyal to them. Look at the frequent flyer programs (you don't just need to earn miles for the next tier, but "qualifying dollars" or whatever arbitrary scam of the month is) and that why I threw my frequent flyer card away - it completely corrupted. They are not honest with us, so we should be allowed to stick it to them.
Airlines could provide customers with a simple way to inform them that the customer will not use part of the ticket. This would avoid any possible inconvenience PLUS allows the airline to resell the seat.
How about this. The airlines request any passenger that intends to exit the flight at the layover notify the staff so they can then resale the seat on the final leg?
highly unlikely the airline can resell that seat with such short notice. Very few people book flights with a few hours to go
@@charlesjay8818 Then let passenger notify them earlier (via website). They would just change his ticket and be able to resell the rest. Probably give something to that passenger for letting them know, so they can get more money
@@charlesjay8818 On full flights there's usually people on standby anyway. No need to actually sell the flight. Plus, a lot of flights are oversold to begin with so it actually frees up a seat. The airline doesn't care about you, so don't care about the airline.
Fine, we'll stop skip lagging,, when Airlines stop routinely overbooking flights
@@inothome good point
The flight is probably oversold anyway so I'm pretty sure the seat will be filled. Also, if someone is planning to skiplag then they would definitely not have a checked bag so there would be no need to offload.
True, but then that's one less seat the airline can oversell lol
If airlines get to overbook flights and profit in the hopes that people will leave some seats empty, I get to leave my seat seat empty for my own benefit too. Simple as.
Airlines complain about this causing empty seats for someone that might need it but they have no issue over booking flights. If they want to avoid skiplagging don’t make a connecting itinerary significantly cheaper then direct
What, but they sold that seat, it just happened to be empty on the last leg, it was still paid for.
They do it to compete with direct flights, if they put the price higher, no one will take their flight since it has a stop. If they make the first leg cheaper, then they lose money as people are willing to pay more for that flight
Why does overbooking happen?
@@erauprcwagreed
The empty seat WAS paid for so no money was lost AND since the passengers weight is not on the plane a small amount of money was save in fuel. That being said I can't believe any passenger playing this game would have checked baggage as that would be totally stupid and this person doesn't appear to be stupid since they were smart enough to play the system and win!
I had no idea this was a thing and never once thought about it, good thing they sued and created the publicity! This is actually not a bad idea, if I paid for the seat I should have the right to leave it empty.
I once needed to fly from Amsterdam to Los Angelos. A retour trip was cheaper than any single trip I could find. I flew there and then cancelled my return trip.
Airline prices are insane.
Indeed, when I need a one-way ticket, I always end up buying a two-ticket and only use one half. At least in Europe you can then even request a refund of any taxes on the unused part! One time I got back in taxes half the ticket price minus €7. So apparently the airline was willing to fly me over a distance of 700km plus give me a sandwich for just €7, lol.
In the 90's I used to work for a company that had head offices in Winnipeg, Chicago and Mexico City. The flight from Winnipeg to Chicago was $1200. The flight from Winnipeg to Mexico with a layover in Chicago was $800.
Very simple to fix this. Price all tickets based on their cumulative single destination price (the sum total of all legs of the trip as if they were only single destination itineraries) Then offer an instant rebate equal to the difference between the summed ticket cost and the multi-stop route that is only applied if the passenger boards each flight on the itinerary. (With appealable exceptions for medical emergencies and the like, and automatic exceptions for cancelled flights. Can't not give the customer the trip completion discount because their last flight was cancelled.)
So let me get this straight. They have the right to kick you out when they overbook, but all of a sudden when you book a seat and you don't use it, it's harmful as it prevents someone else from flying? Loooool
If a corporation hates it, then theres something in it that benefits the average person. Theres nothing controversial about saving money. The solution to this is to make the tickets to the destination cheaper. But that might be too “controversial” an idea for them.
They're made we want to save money after they overcharge the fair and overcharged for the bag. GREEDY POS companies
I love how the airlines are like "Oh noes. You're not using a seat that another passenger needs," when in reality, they would make us travel in dog carriers if they could get away with it.
Although I understand the airlines' need for carrying out this practice, it is really hard to understand that they accept to sell a seat for a price and then say that the buyer should have paid more just because he got up earlier... Anyway, there is a simple solution for them to solve this imbroglio: just sell all the seats for the same price with a cash back to those who embark on the second leg...
That solution would actually work.
The airlines should allow it as long as you do not have a checked bag. As that is a valid security concern and does take extra resources to search the hold for a specific bag
I have no sympathy for the airlines here, if all airlines set prices based on journey lengths instead of making longer journeys cheaper than shorter ones.
The airlines are NOT losing money on the empty seat, as it has been paid for.
How is overbooking by the airlines legal vs skiplagging illegal? 😅
First they sold the seat and they don’t even need to deliver. They lost nothing but gain a lighter flight on the last leg. This is such a stupid complaint. When they oversell the number of seats, on a plain and sometimes kick people of by brutal force, that’s the problem! 🤦♂️🤯🤡🤢🤮
Then, to make a skip lagging legal. The customer should contact the airline that they won't be flying the rest of the itinerary, and he doesn't have any checked luggage on board. 😅 Their delayed departure argument would be moot.
Exactly. I think I now understand why they came up with this totally contrived argument: it is the only argument they can possibly use as a "compelling reason" to refuse customers. An airline is a "common carrier" and cannot arbitrarily refuse customers.
I have skiplagged before. Once I had a flight AMS-RIX priced at 259eur, but AMS-RIX-PLQ where the first leg is the same direct flight cost just 159 eur. I booked the connecting flight but got out at RIX which was my intended destination. To make sure airline does not wait for me, I was able to NOT check in for the skipped segment.
You could probably have requested a refund of the taxes on the unused part. You might still be able to do it. Airlines hide the form very well on their website and in their apps, but if you look carefully you will find it. If you have a cheap ticket, most of the price will be taxes.
I feel no empathy for airlines. They have caused this predicament by complicating airfares and often treating passengers unfairly. Unless you opt for premium services, airlines tend to treat passengers poorly, oversell flights, and offer minimal services, among other issues. Why it is lost revenue? The passenger paid for that seat, regardless skiplagging or not. The airline even saved a package of peanuts and half a can of soda.
👍👏😂😅😊
And also saved fuel!
@@MarceloTrindade1 The fuel is still loaded as they consider the passenger on board
@@agent_doubl3188 Yes, but once this passenger is not flying, the airline is saving fuel, isn't it?
Not really, as they plan the flight to be heavier (Of course its not 1 person that changes the fuel quantity, but multiple people do) so their calculations are wrong, and that means the aircraft will try to use more power, even if its lighter so the fuel is still used @@MarceloTrindade1
Because the airlines get cute with their pricing policy, it deserves them right to get screwed by skip laggers. If they did not price the tickets the way they do, there wouldn't be this problem. They bring it on themselves
I've never done this but I've definitely felt the frustration at the lack of transparency (or even sense) in airline pricing models. This was years ago but I looked at flying between Des Moines and Minneapolis and it was cheaper to fly through Detroit as a connecting flight than to go directly to Minneapolis but if I tried to fly to Detroit it would try to have me connect through Minneapolis.
Something tells me they only have a problem with this when the final destination is cheaper than a flight to the layover location. In situations where a ticket to the layover location would have been cheaper than the final destination, I bet the airlines suddenly don't care about the empty seat.
I see both sides of the argument. I wouldn't attempt it but I can see why someone would do it. Maybe the airlines should lower their fares🤷♂️
Then the airline can't afford to maintain the route. Even a JFK-LAX route can lose money, even with every seat occupied.
It only works if you're flying on a one way ticket. It's been policy and programed in to reservation systems for many years now that if you miss a leg, everything else is canceled in your booking. It's nothing new. AA also has the ability to not accept a booking from a 3rd party or redirect to their website.
There is an interesting form of skiplagging that covers that. You can book A->B->C in June with a return in December, and a C->B->A flight in July with a return in January next year. This is often cheaper and you can add checked in bags no worries. Than in December and January you don't show for the "return" flights.
@@Robytmro That's not considered shiplagging. That's just booking a round trip ITN since correct they can often be cheaper. Just depends on the market and time of booking.
Also, airlines often price weeklong trips lower than short return trips on the same route to extract more value from business travel. If you know you'll need to be in London on the weekends of June 1st and June 22nd, you can book A->B with Air B on June 1, returning on June 25th. You book B->A on A Airways on June 4th, returning on June 22nd. The two airlines each think you're on the opposite side of the pond for two weeks.
Purchase the ticket with the carrier and ask them to offload you once at transit point.
There is no law against changing your travel plans. Just be informative and nice about it.
The practice that I encountered, and found to be utterly ridiculous was :
Myself and 7 others organised and booked an international flight to the USA (LAX), there were a series of domestic flights to NY, Vegas, Washington DC, etc.
This flight in to LAX was over 90 minutes late, and it was bedlam trying to get to NY, etc. but we were split up over several carriers and all arrived at NY. Our luggage was "lost", but arrived the next day.
The wedding was in that area and we had 4 days free. Then the wedding and another day free, prior to flying to New Orleans. We go there, and found that we were not booked on the flight. The airline Representative checked and all our flights including our international flight home were cancelled. This was also around some of the major holidays in the US. The Rep spent about an hour booking us on to our destinations, with a few that we got there a day later, etc. This meant we also paid for accommodation that we did not use. in a few places.
Give that the airline KNEW we were in the country, and that the first missed flight was because of a late arrival, the absolutely should not have cancelled all our subsequent booking. After all they put us onto a later flight to the same destination. We missed at least one tour at a location for some of our party because their flights were on a later day.
And cancelling our return international flight is criminally negligent. What if we could not arrange a return flight for some of use till a bit later. Would we be deported if our visa ended prior to our flight?
This practice of cancelling ALL future flights should be totally prohibited as a default action. The airline should be only able to do so once they have contacted each and every individual and obtained their authorisation.
At the time I was so pissed off that I was seriously looking at legal action for the costs of the entire holiday, as well as stress involved.
These ridiculous mega corporations have so much audacity they think they are entitled to every single dollar everyone has. If they see an empty seat they think they should’ve been able to sell it twice. This makes me sick and it makes me resist flying even more than I already was
If airlines give a benefit when skiplagging, they have to blame themselves and adjust their pricing system. Last time when I checked (before the pandemic), flying with Singapur Airlines from western Europe to Singapur, skiplagging can save several hundred dollars. In a perfect world airfares should not reflect what passengers are willing to pay but what the flight actually costs (plus like 5-10% for profit). But we all know, such an honest and transparent world is whishful thinking. On the other hand, one can have a similar price reduction when using a VPN and "claiming" to book from a poor country. I wonder how long it takes until the airlines start to sue lawsuits against this aswell.
Airlines are just mad because they overcharge for main routes but also want to get paid for longer routes too. A fair pricing model that actually charges depending on distance would prevent skiplagging.
did it once due to a last minute change in plans, asked the gate agent about not taking my final leg (booked a round trip) and I had no checked luggage, had 0 issues
The airlines aren’t concerned about someone potentially needing the empty seat, they’re just upset they’re losing money. Besides, if you did continue on that second flight, the same dumb argument can be made. “Someone possibly might need that seat more than you, are you sure your reason to be on this flight is important enough?”
Imagine booking a restaurant, choosing the fixed menu because it is much more affordable, but not eating the dessert because it's not your thing or you're full and the restaurant then forcing you to eat the dessert or suing you for not eating the dessert. That would be utterly insane. The restaurant hasn't lost money. The restaurant has taken the full amount. The next booking for that table isn't inconvenienced. The wait staff have less to do and more time to give the other patrons a better service. In this case, it's a win-win.
The reasons that the airlines give are sophistic: You paid the fare for the full ticket, so why are you any worse than any other passenger who pays the same fare? Airlines these days, due to terrorism know to the bag if your bag is in the hold. So, a skip-lagger who plans to skip will usually only travel with cabin baggage to make it easier, this is then not an issue to the airline. Then imagine how it improves passenger morale when a passenger finds they have an empty seat next to them for the remaining legs. Plus, although small, it saves the airline fuel costs on the not taken flight and, if the passenger doesn't disembark at the final destinations, if there's a passenger airport tax, the airline may be able to claim that back and keep it as profit. This seems to be, on consumer rights grounds, totally specious. Going after the website on copyright grounds seems to be their only hope, but the website only has to not show the logo to be in compliance. If the website takes a commission for linking a customer with a genuine seller, the airline has no case.
but someone else could have ate your dessert!
That's not the same thing.
The real problem is airline pricing. I remember a situation years ago when a woman wanted to fly from St Louis to New Orleans. She found it was cheapest to take a bus to Kansas City then get on a flight there that had a layover in St Louis and then went on to New Orleans.
Skiplagging, also known as customer arbitrage. Airlines should not have fee systems where such arbitrage is possible if they want to prevent skiplagging. They can pound sand or fix the fares to eliminate the problem.
Idk much about skiplagging. But I can say I found the following great deals to Vietnam back at the beginning of August. EWR-HDN-SGN for $900 return in December. Or SFO-HND-SGN for $870 return, both via United/ANA with a nice layover in Tokyo so you can get a taste of the city before continuing on. If you were to book from a starting destination like DFW/IAH/AUS/FLL/MIA/PBI/MCO/DEN the cost jumps to $2,000 for one additional flight. So there’s nothing stopping you from just booking two separate itineraries.
Is this practice only done for one-way tickets? Seems like for a round trip, the moment you skip a leg on the outbound flight, the entire return flight would get cancelled with no refund.
yes you just book 2 one way flights instead. which isnt any more expensive than a round trip
@@MohammedAli-pj1it It's much more expensive than a round trip.
So the airlines offers cheaper price for longer flight and then are surprised that people take on the offer?
This is capitalism in its purest form! 😂 And THEY complain because once the customer benefit, but then again they airline loses nothing, they set the price in the first place!
Sounds like the airlines could offer a " let's make a deal" for passengers who found this hack. The passenger pays the lower rate and the airline sells the unused seat. Or are they too proud?
So Airlines can overbook their flights by selling my seat twice, but I can't not show up for a seat I've already paid for? The gall on these airlines 😂
The airline industry are hypocrites for complaining about Skiplagging but insist on overbooking every flight they can, sometimes violently. It's just flat out wrong to be upset on an empty seat when it gets filled anyways because of overbooking. If they want sympathy, get rid of overbooking first. Until then, everyone should take advantage of airlines own dumb pricing that they themselves set everyday.
I live in Europe, and I don't see that much overbooking, so the issue for companies like Lufthansa about Skiplagging still exist, idk about the US
@@agent_doubl3188 The problem is that it happens at all. The airlines took your money, so you its yours to use (or not). If they don't like that they shouldn't take your money. What the airlines want is to take your money, not give you a seat, and sell it someone else. That is fraud.
I do not understand why the companies say this is a loss of revenue, they sold the ticket for (at least) 2 flights, they got their money, and they have a lighter aircraft for the last flight, meaning less petrole consumption, so this is a source of benefits for the carrier and they would not earn more is the passengers makes the whole trip.
Back in the late 80s, I moved to Japan using a ticket that was LAX>TOK>HKG, with the "layover" in Tokyo being for up to a year before I had to continue. I stayed for 3 months in Tokyo, secured a job, then went to Hong Kong in order to leave the country to process my work visa (I had to leave since I was on a tourist visa, and re-enter on my work visa). I was then in Tokyo for the remainder of that year, heading back to LAX for a vacation/family visit and pick up a new R/T ticket.
Since the "layover" was actually allowed by the airline (Korean Air), I'm not sure it was technically skiplagging. But it really made for a convenient trip.
This does seem like it's up to the airlines to fix this by fixing their pricing to remove the incentive.
The loss of revenue argument is nonsense! They get the fare that they charged irrespective of whether the passenger flies all legs or not.
What this practice highlights is price gouging by airlines where there’s less competition.
How can it be cheaper to fly further from CLT to MCO to DFW than just to fly CLT to MCO ? That’s why they don’t like it. Technically there’s an opportunity cost of reselling the seat but if the pricing was more reasonable this wouldn’t arise. The argument about searching for checked baggage is also totally spurious as pointed out mid-way through the video.
Certain airlines have a history of selling seats at a loss in order to drive weaker airlines out of an airport. This is done to jack up prices and rip off fliers after that has been accomplished. The real cost to the airline is the deliberate loss is not hurting a competitor.
I've never heard the term "skiplag" before. I've always encountered this concept being called "Hidden City Ticketing".
I am wondering if they have not simply copied the term from the name of the company Skiplagged. Seems to me leg skipping would be the appropriate term, not skip lagging...
Airlines overbook flights intentionally, hearing them suffer from skiplagging is funny
If they stop overbooking flights they can have a say on skiplagging
The person paid the airline for a service, and they elected not to enjoy the full service. They even are saving the airlines a bit of money, due to the slightly reduced fuel costs. The seat is paid for the whole way. The airlines could remove this if they don’t want it by simply fixing their pricing
But how is it revenue lost if the person was supposed to be in that seat anyway that they paid for? If you overbook a flight (selling more tickets than seats and thus making revenue back) then just move a person from the standby list to the seat. I’m missing how the airline would have made money in the case that the person did in fact show up for the last leg of the flight?
if skip lagging is illegal then overbooking should as well be. otherwise, it's fair game.
this sounds like it was written by an AI
So what happens on the return flight? I can't just show up at the connecting airport and get a seat... or can I? Wouldn't a no-show lead to cancellation of all onward flight including the return?
Former AA employee here. I agree that you've already paid for the seat and its your choice to use it or not. The way I see it, the problem arises when you just leave without informing them, as they have to wait for you until the last moment. It's worse if you have checked bags, that's a big deal and a major cause for delays. At least AA has a policy (might be industry standard) of never leaving a bag on board if the passenger doesn't appear. That's how Pan Am flight 103 was taken down (Lockerbie bombing).
Airlines can stop this “tragedy” by providing a better service 😂 I paid for it you can’t tell me anything who they really think they are
If airlines can complain about skip lagging on the grounds that it inhibits other potential passengers in need from using the seat, then the airlines shouldn’t be allowed to overbook either. Can’t have it both ways.
I would think that passengers that are skip-lagging have not checked any baggage, so that argument about it causing the airline to need to search for luggage is silly.
So an airline can take your money knowing they sold 208 tickets on a 200 seat plane, meaning they sold tickets they had no intention of honoring. But we can't pay them for something we wont be using? Maybe they should structure prices to remove the incentive by not price gouging certain destinations. Airlines are the last businesses in the world that should complain about unethical business practices
The airlines did it to themselves with their convoluted pricing.
Even if it was a direct flight i bet every seat would be a different price.
If an airline can cancel flights at will, stranding customers in layover cities without true compensation, travelers should have the legal right to skiplag at will.
If airlines want to stop skiplagging, they need to first clean up their own mess and offer 100% refunds+free rebookings+free next leg flights for all flights that are cancelled due to their own doing such as pilot/flight attendant strikes, computer system failures, overbookings etc. ANY overbooking should be outright ruled illegal. If I have 100 sandwiches, I can't sell 140 of them counting on 40 people to "not be hungry". Why do airlines get a free pass on this kind of predatory practice just because they need to fill seats? Skiplagging is one of the perfectly valid ways of getting the customer what they are due.
There are a couple easy ways to fix this. The first is to fix pricing. The second is that there are some carrots and sticks available here. The airline wants the opportunity to resell the seat. The "this causes chaos" point can be removed if departing flyers notify the gate agent. The system can be instantly updated to clear the seat. Now you add the carrots and sticks. Notifying the gate agent will result in losing the miles for the missed leg but keeping the miles for the leg flown. Failing to alert the gate agent will result in loss of the frequent flyer miles for the whole trip and a deduction of miles for the skipped leg.
This is the first time I have heard about this. Thank you. The airlines don't have the passengers interest in mind. So why should we have their's. Decades of overbooking, canceling flights, changing times for no reason, bag fees, sorry no the airlines get no sympathy from me.
There's no lost revenue, and they're perfectly happy to not have someone show up - feels like every single flight I board these days is a "full flight" even for routes that cannot possibly have high demand. This is dragging their heels when they know they created a stupid and broken system and they're getting taken advantage of for once, instead of the reverse.
Airlines have so little accountability for their failures, I hope the lawsuit gets thrown out.
The seat does not remain empty... you always have people on stand by because the airline oversold/missed connections/weather. There is no checked baggage in flying a hidden city/skiplagging.
It’s also known as ‘travelling short’.
The only "loss" to the airline is because you booked a seat to the final destination, they lost the opportunity to sell that second leg to some schmuck at a higher price.
I skiplagged a while back on USAir, because their booking system was too broken to allow me to do it correctly. I had a flight Memphis-Charlotte-DC and had a change of plans, and needed to go Memphis-Charlotte-Orlando and then Orlando-DC. But their booking system wouldn't let me change it, insisting there were no seats free for the Memphis-Charlotte leg, even though I would be occupying a seat on that segment in either case. So I just bought flights from another carrier for Charlotte-Orlando and Orlando-DC and didn't use the Charlotte-DC segment.
see, my only real gripe with skiplagging is that i truly don't understand how people actually pull it off even with a carry on. in my experience, i get gate checked about 75% of the time when i fly, and since bags go to the final destination, a gate check while skiplagging basically means you're screwed when it comes to your luggage. so if it were to be made legal, airlines would probably probably not be able to do gate checks. makes me wonder how they handle this in italy since it is a legal thing to do there.
You can't check in your luggage if you skip lag.
well yes, i'm talking about getting gate checked, which you have no control over@@ronald3836
So if I bought a ticket and just never showed up would they care and sue me? No. The same logic applies here. Why would I get punished using part of my ticket. Maybe the airlines should have competitive pricing then
A similar system, perfectly legal, exists in the UK for train journeys, except the other way around. Trainline, a ticket seller, sells two tickets to complete a journey ... on the same train ... where the two tickets are cheaper than the one ticket. No lawsuits so far.
The airlines don't make it easy to not become an unintentional skiplagger! I recently booked a flight using miles - Jax-BWI, overnight stay, BWI-SDF, 4 day stay, SDF-JAX. I realized I needed to be in SDF earlier and bought a ticket on another airline to accommodate this. Courtesy called the original airline to tell them I wouldn't be on the middle leg only to find out I had to rebook the whole thing. Then I decided to leave SDF a couple of days early, bought a ticket on the same airline. During layover I stopped by the desk to let them know I wasn't using the later ticket only to be told I had to call the airline. On the plus side I got some miles refunded which I wasn't expecting so I guess it was worth it.
Well .... how do you get back into the secured area w/o a ticket? Why would a front desk agent issue a boarding pass for that middle airport when the person tries the return portion.
Just have a policy of only issuing boarding passes on the origination of the whole flight.
Great reporting but I still don’t have empathy for the airline. So the airline is allowed to overbook the flight then cancel when I’m already at the airport but they don’t like the taste of their own medicine. Just price the flight based on the expense of that specific flight.
How is it revenue lost for the carrier? The ticket and seat has already been sold (at the original price to the skiplagger)! Besides, I bet the person sitting next to the now empty seat doesn't mind the extra room!!