Airlines can prevent all skiplagging by just restructuring their pricing to remove the incentive.

I agree with the conclusion: If I have paid for the seat, I have the option of leaving it empty.

In the news tomorrow: "Restaurant sues customer after he does not eat the desert he paid for!"

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

The airlines are blowing smoke. They create the pricing - they must bear the results. The claim about checked bags is clearly rubbish.

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?

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

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.

Honestly Its rare that I find a skiplag that's actually the cheapest overall, I doubt it has a large impact.

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

As a frequent non-rev standby passenger, please skiplag more often! More seats for us!

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.

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.

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?

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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

How is overbooking by the airlines legal vs skiplagging illegal? 😅

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.

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! 🤦‍♂️🤯🤡🤢🤮

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 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.

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🤷‍♂️

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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

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.

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?”

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?

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.

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!

So the airlines offers cheaper price for longer flight and then are surprised that people take on the offer?

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.

I've never heard the term "skiplag" before. I've always encountered this concept being called "Hidden City Ticketing".

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

If they stop overbooking flights they can have a say on skiplagging

I remember an article on some website mentioning it as a life hack. I didn't know there was a term for it and that it's a real problem!

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.

This does seem like it's up to the airlines to fix this by fixing their pricing to remove the incentive.

Airlines overbook flights intentionally, hearing them suffer from skiplagging is funny

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.

I almost missed a flight once. They didnt look for the missing passenger. They simply closed the door when the crowd had boarded. I had to beg to be let on even though they just closed the closed the door.

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.

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.

so I was thinking about going to Charlotte from St. Louis, it turns out United charges $40 more for round trip to Charlotte then it does to Wilmington despite happening to stop at Charlotte first. So the flight costs United MORE to fly to BOTH Charlotte and Wilmington but as a passenger, you pay more to go to Charlotte. That makes no sense. This one one way that discount airlines like Spirit and Frontier are far better then the first rate airlines, they price flights for the most part for point to point so a flight with 2 connections will always be more expensive then a flight directly to the first connection.

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?

this sounds like it was written by an AI

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.

As you mention at the end of the video, the passenger paid for the seat on all legs of the journey--whether or not they're sitting in it. What's the problem?

What if a passenger notifies the layover gate agent they won’t be finishing the flight. Then the airline uses the seat for a standby passenger??

if skip lagging is illegal then overbooking should as well be. otherwise, it's fair game.

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

Maybe a little box to check acknowledging you'll be charged extra if your bags have to be offloaded and a charge for delaying the flight before websites allow you to make the final purchase? Or it could just be straight up called "skip lagging addendum" or whatever. Just because it's legal to do doesn't mean you can't bind people with stupid agreements. We check little boxes without reading the fine print all the time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s also known as ‘travelling short’.

How come airlines are allowed to overbook and count on some passengers not showup? but when passenger skip a part of the trip they paid for it is not ok?

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.

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 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

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.

But the airline has been paid the advertised price for the whole flight so whether the seat is occupied on the second leg is immaterial. It appears that they want to double-sell the second leg. What am I missing?

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).

Never knew about this but I fully intend to do it.