I am not too sure about you, but with the airline industry reeling from a missing jet which has yet to be found until today, not to mention another plane that was shot down from the sky by rebels over in Europe, and the latest AirAsia flight that crashed en route to Singapore from Indonesia, it does not look as though things are looking up. Still, flying is deemed to be a safer mode of travel as opposed to a car, and more often than not, it can be a challenge to look for the cheapest flights out there. United Airlines and booking site Orbitz have sued a site known as Skiplagged, where the latter would be able to arrange “hidden city” connection discounts.
How does Skiplagged work? Well, since airlines tend to charge a whole lot more when it comes to popular routes, such as Chicago/Paris as opposed to the longer and of course, less popular routes that have multiple connections such as Chicago/Dubai, Skiplagged would work on picking the most cost effective route for you, resulting in cheaper tickets.
Airlines are not comfortable with this idea at all, and they have mentioned that such practice is considered to be fraudulent, and tickets will be voided without a refund should they happen to chance upon a traveler who “exploits” the system. Their reasoning? It messes around with the hub-and-spoke system, resulting in public safety and logistical problems with passenger counts. Skiplagged did not comment on the situation as they are now seeking for donations from users in order to fight the suit in court.
Filed in . Read more about Legal.