The purchased flight was from Gainesville, Florida to New York City with a layover in Charlotte. The plan was for the teen to get off the plane in Charlotte where he lives. [… more in the article …]
I fly rarely these days but skiplagging has always been tempting. Has anyone here done it?
“It’s the first time he’s flown, and he really doesn’t know what he is doing,” said Bruce Brandon, an aviation attorney
Riight. I’m a frequent flyer and this is the first time I’ve ever heard of this trick! LOL
American Airlines sent a statement to Queen City News saying, “Purchasing a ticket without intending to fly all flights to gain lower fares (hidden city ticketing) is a violation of American Airlines terms and conditions…"
How can they legally do that? If someone wants to stay at their layaway city, it’s no business of the airline. The ticket was paid for, and they save on fuel not having to fly someone to another destination. Win-win!
The main argument against skiplagging is that each ticket is a contract to get someone from point A to point B, and any points in between are at the discretion of the carrier. It’s quite common for airlines to have to reroute you through different cities if your flights have issues. So there is no guarantee at all you will actually fly through the connecting city.
But that’s a contractual issue, between you and the airline, and as long as the kid had a valid boarding pass for that airport there was no reason to detain him. Sounds like he was super anxious and the security agent thought that made him suspicious.
The main argument against skiplagging is that each ticket is a contract to get someone from point A to point B, and any points in between are at the discretion of the carrier.
Yes, the contract might say that, but it’s not a legal obligation (the report says it’s totally legal).
It sounds like the airline wants to keep people hostage until they get to point B, and not allow free human beings to choose when they’d actually like to end their trip.
I think this is a strange contractual agreement, especially if we’re not talking about a babysitting service.
Probably the only thing that the airlines have on this specific case is the fact that the teen is a minor, so they do have a responsibility to make sure that he does get to his ticket destination.
It’s quite common for airlines to have to reroute you through different cities if your flights have issues. So there is no guarantee at all you will actually fly through the connecting city.
That would be the risk of skip lagging, and the carrier has no responsibility over ensuring that it works in your favor. LOL
The father of this teen said that they use skip lagging all the time, but didn’t realize that it is 'frowned upon" by the airline.
Detained for not using a flight you bought and paid for? Can someone please ban those airlines and grant this poor boy a compensation of 1.5 million per minute of detention?
That’s absolutely unacceptable.
Pro tip: if you are a US citizen, get a US passport card. It’s only $30, perfectly valid as TSA ID, and doesn’t have your address.
The security guy had no business detaining him in the first place, but part of the reason why he considered the kid “suspicious” is that he presented a NC license, but was connecting through NC to somewhere else.
Can you repost the whole article? I’m not able to view it. “This content is not available in your country/region.”
It appears this has it. It says it was 9 hours ago. https://archive.ph/1zdoN
