American Airlines Wins $9.4 Million From ‘Skiplagged’ Site That Exploits Airlines’ Business Model

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Airlines use lots of tricky games to price their fares. Skiplagged gives agency back to the customer, and American didn't like that.

in a lawsuit filed against Skiplagged.com, a website that helps travelers get cheaper flights by booking flights with a connection and then abandoning the connecting flight to the final destination.

As of today, Skiplagged still returns fares and routes from American Airlines. It’s unclear if that will change. We have reached out for comment.—effectively an exploit of the airline business model—and use technology to try and detect when customers are doing it. Travelers have reported being banned from certain airlines for years after being caught.

It seems counterintuitive — why would flying to San Francisco and taking another flight to Sacramento be cheaper than just flying to San Francisco? Essentially, major airlines work on a model in which direct flights between every city would not make sense — how many people really want to fly from Boston to Sacramento? So in the interest of efficiency, the airlines use major cities like San Francisco as central connecting hubs for flights to other destinations with less demand.

It’s hard to feel sympathy for the airlines in this case. Anyone who travels regularly knows how gate agents constantly plead with passengers to change their flight when a plane has been overbooked and too many people show up. The airlines are playing games to maximize revenue and frustrate customers—skiplagging just turns the tables on them, returning some power back to the customer.

 

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