Teenager detained at Florida airport and accused of ‘skiplagging’ travel hack
Teenager detained at Florida airport and accused of ‘skiplagging’ travel hack
Skiplagging isn’t illegal, but that doesn’t mean it’s without risks
"It's not illegal, but we're gonna detain a teenager and treat him like a security threat, anyway."
- AA (probably)
I already know the answer, but why are what I presume are gate agents employed by a private corporation allowed to detain a citizen who is not a physical threat to anyone over a contract dispute?
Refund his ticket and don't let him on the plane if you're that concerned, or otherwise handle it in civil court after the fact. Using physical force to detain him over a contract dispute should be illegal.
Refund his ticket and don’t let him on the plane
They probably have a duty of care given that he's a minor.
Who knows what "detained" really means in this circumstance.
For all we know the kid could've asked the officials how to skip lag. "I need to go home to x but this ticket says y and I don't want to go there".
I get where you're coming from as the article is told from a specific perspective, but they were perfectly happy to maroon the kid in a strange city by making him do the full flight, so I don't think they were looking out for him.
I don't remember the specific age for domestic flights, but if he was travelling on his own without needing what is essentially a chaperone, then he was at least 15 or so. So a minor, but old enough to take care of himself. I don't think they had a duty of care any more than a McDonalds cashier does when a group of teenagers go there on their own to order food. I've done those kinds of flights when I was younger and its actually not trivial to just leave at the wrong airport when you get that kind of chaperone treatment.
These were security agents who pulled him out of line unprompted and took him into a secure room. Even if he admitted he wanted to skip-lag, that's not illegal so why bring him to a back room if not to intimidate him and get his parents to pay up?
In the article it says airlines dont like this tactic because it cuts in to their profits. But that could only be true if their prices weren't actually based on the costs of a flight but were instead just designed to basically scam people. Why would a flight from FL to NC cost more than a flight from FL to NY that happens to stop in NC? Airlines are a fucking cartel.
I think it's a supply and demand (for pilots) sort of thing. There are less pilots than there are available flights. Pilots are pretty limited regarding their available flying hours (at least in the US):
An airline transport pilot can fly up to 8 hours per 24 hour period and up to 10 hours if a second pilot is aboard. Pilots are required to rest a minimum of 16 hours postflight. Some variances to these regulations exist depending on the company's operations specifications.
I agree about the cartel bit though, the prices for a lot of things are outrageous.
Skiplagging cuts into dividends. What it doesn't cut into is the ruthlessly low pay of the pilots, what has been near-minimum-wage for decades now.
Yet another reason for me not to fly.
It's also about repositioning of the aircraft fleet. Sometimes there'll be flights from one airport to another not because it's profitable but because they need to reposition an aircraft to cover a profitable route, or because they need to do scheduled maintenance and such and such airport is a primary repair site or has a free hangar.
So it's not illegal but they were still able to force his parents to buy him another ticket? To my untrained eye that feels like an easy lawsuit?
They didn't force them to technically. They voided the original and left them with a choice of finding alternative means of transportation or buying an inflated ticket. If you violate the TOS of your transit ticket they can terminate the ticket agreement. It's totally a scumbag move, but probably not a slam dunk lawsuit.
It would be like if you used a hack to get a cheaper uber and they refused to take you the rest of your ride until you paid without the hack. The hack may be totally legal, but within a private contract it constitutes a violation of your user agreement. Now you can walk, take the bus, hitchhike, rent a U-Haul, or whatever you want to continue the trip. But uber can say you aren't going anywhere in an uber until you comply with their TOS. Again, scumbag Mr. Burns capitalism, but legal and unlikely to be worth civil litigation.
He was detained for that? That’s fucked. But what else is new.
seems like THAT is something that could be illegal and suing their ass off.
Did the airline detain him or did the security of the airport detain him. Two different companies in my mind. Does the airline have security and a security room in every airport? Opens up a shift load of extra liability.
Like most of these news stories, I've just learned about skiplagged.
Streisand effect.
They're pissed people aren't buying their extortion tickets. Its bullshit direct flights cost more per ticket when they cost the airliner less.
The airline “detaining” the child necessarily implies the minor child was either kidnapped or falsely arrested, am I wrong in this regard? No laws are being violated, so the employees detaining the kid and, literally holding him for ransom, should be charged for felony kidnapping.
Yeah fuck the airlines
What in the corporate penny pinching fuck.
TIL a cool new trick
Yeah a cool trick called not getting on the plane lol
bruh I hope they sue the airline for illegal detainment and extortion or something, what a pile of shit
Idk if there’s a better website to find these deals but I just googled around and found this one: https://skiplagged.com/
I’ve never thought about doing this before but will now keep it in mind the next time I travel.
So they got free money by getting paid for something they didn't even have to provide and that's a problem?
I'll remember this trick next time I need a fight
Parents should have called the police and charged the airline with kidnapping/ human trafficking. Jim Caviezal would show up and the sound of freedom would release the teen.
They detained this kid because he was leaving the airport? Wtf
Sounds like they stopped him before he even got on the first flight because they suspected he might leave the next airport. It's fucking criminal.
If I was that kids father. Fuck that bullshit.
Oh, it's skip-lagging, not ski-plagging. I was trying to figure out why it would be "ski" instead of "sky" and what "plagging" means... I should go to bed.