Skiplagging, or hidden- city ticketing, means booking a flight with the intention of getting off at the layover city rather than the final destination. If you are a frequent flyer, you probably used this trick to save some money while flying. If you never heard of this trick before, I am sure you are now interested in how it works. Therefore, here is an example. If someone wants to fly from Paris to Pittsburgh but the price of the ticket is too high they have other, cheaper option to buy a ticket from Paris to New York with a layover in Pittsburgh, and never continue the journey, instead of that they exit the airport at transfer city. Therefore, it is cheaper to fly through the place you want to go, than directly to the place you want to go.
skyscanner.net
skiplagged.com
You probably ask yourself if the distance is larger, it should cost more money to get there, right? However, in the airline world the important thing is where, not how far are you going. It only works between certain destinations, typically from a low-cost or unpopular destination to a high-cost or popular destination. For instance, if you are going to the popular touristic center, it is assumed that you are using your leisure time to get there, so you are going to be more sensitive on price. On the other hand, huge business cities as destination points often have a larger price. No matter what, if you have a business meeting, you will buy that ticket no matter of price.
Airlines are aware of this problem, and there were numerous examples of airlines fighting against this practice, as we could see in the case of German airline Lufthansa, which sued passenger for 2112 euros for skipping last leg of his flight . Passenger booked a ticket for the return flight from Oslo to Seattle, with the layover in Frankfurt, and showed up on every flight, except the last one from Frankfurt to Oslo. Instead, he skiplagged in Frankfurt and bought another Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Berlin. Lufthansa is not the only one trying to punish Skip lagging passengers. United Airline has sent a letter to passenger who used skipplagging trick for 38 times with quite intimidating tone demanding a payment of several thousand dollars.
Why do airlines hate this phenomenon? Silly question! They are losing a lot of money. You would probably think: How? Passenger PAID the price they asked for the flight and never showed up. However, that one empty seat could have been sold to a new passenger, and airline couldn’t maximize their revenue.
There is even a web site called Skiplagged.com, that was created to help travelers to find hidden- city ticket. Before this website, skip lagging was some kind of secret behavior. United Airlines have sued this controversial site several times. Nevertheless, there is no legal foundation to be sued. Making a ticket purchase does not obligate you to actually use it. Can you imagine a coffee shop trying to sue a customer for not finishing their coffee? They have the freedom to do what they want as long as they have paid the asking price. Airlines began to see this as a serious problem, and they are now taking some drastic steps that demand time and effort.
With more and more media attention, there are ever more fliers that would like to try to save money in this way. With modern technologies, it is certain that this phenomenon is going to be easier to track down. Until now, however, the number of discovered skiplaggers with the proven intention to do this is not that high.
However, you should consider a few things before skip lagging. First is the luggage; you can’t check in luggage, therefore you need to use it as carry-on. Second, is a broken contract of carriage that may be the cause of legal disputes with the airline. Moreover, the third thing is a possibility of banning your account for traveling on that particular airline that will especially affect you if you are a frequent flyer.
Finally, we live in the age where you can travel very cheaply by exploring more information about flight on time. With little effort, it is possible to avoid these inconveniences.
