Airlines take action against passengers using ticket loophole

Major airlines are going after passengers who use a simple loophole to secure cheaper tickets.

Major airlines are fighting back against passengers who use a simple loophole to secure cheaper tickets.

Experts said that carriers were becoming increasingly wise to so-called skiplagging: passengers who book a cheap multi-leg ticket that connects through a major city but then fail to board the final flight.

Lufthansa, the German flag carrier, is pursuing legal action against a passenger who was due to fly from Seattle to Oslo via Frankfurt but failed to board the second leg of the flight.

Other airlines, such as United and Iberia, have taken action against travellers over the issue in the past and it is believed that more may follow, particularly in light of the popularity of online ticket-buying websites that can scour databases to find similar anomalies.

The system can save passengers hundreds of pounds because multi-leg tickets are often cheaper than premium non-stop flights.

However, the move by Lufthansa illustrates the extent to which airlines are attempting to close ticketing loopholes.

Many carriers already impose “no-show” clauses, which allow them to cancel multi-leg bookings and return flights when a passenger fails to make part of the journey.

An investigation in December by Which?, the consumer group, showed that 11 out of 16 leading airlines used the clauses.

This allows them automatically to cancel the second or third leg of a flight and re-sell a passenger’s seat if they fail to board the first part of the journey.

Which? has begun a campaign against the system, saying that it is unfair and unjustified.

Many airlines have previously failed to chase up passengers who book a cheap multi-leg ticket from A to B to C but remain in destination B.

In the Lufthansa case, the unnamed passenger declined to complete his scheduled journey, which took place in April 2016, instead flying on from Frankfurt to Berlin. Lufthansa took him to court, claiming the £1,800 ($3250) that he had saved plus interest.

The case was dismissed in December but the German carrier has now been given leave to appeal against the judgment.

Airlines such as Lufthansa and British Airways, which operate multiple connecting flights through major hubs, are particularly vulnerable to the system.

Yesterday, a spokesman for Lufthansa said: “As this is a running court case, we are not able to comment at this stage.”

Jack Sheldon, founder of the cheap fares website Jack’s Flight Club, said: “My impression is that Lufthansa is doing this as a deterrent more than anything else, in the hope that other people will be scared off from doing the same.

“It would be interesting to know if it will work or backfire as stories like these are what educate travellers about these sorts of loopholes being possible.”

He added, however, that there were “particular limitations to this loophole”. These include not being able to take checked luggage.

“As hold luggage is checked in to the final destination, you won’t be able to take it with you if you choose to skip the last leg,” he said.

“It also only works with one-way flights, which are generally more expensive to begin with and make it difficult to use the loophole for most trips.

“Once you skip any portion of your itinerary the remainder is automatically cancelled by the airline.”

The Times