Sued over cheap flights

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel...over-cheap-flight-legal-loophole-9950333.html

Thats a joke. How is he doing anything wrong ?

 

He's not. They're just attempting to shut him down by pushing him into an expensive lawsuit.

 

Absolutely. There is no way that the lawsuit has any merit or chance of winning, but just being taken to court will incur huge costs.

 

LOL. I often used that exact trick when booking flights to Europe (I only will fly if I have to go trans continental). Sometimes I could save like $1000 by 'missing' my connection. It's seriously stupid.
I really feel for small business that get crushed by idiotic law suits that shouldn't even be possible to have started in the first place.

 

Maybe it was to early for me to get my head around the concept as it took me a few read thoughts and the wiki article about hidden ticketing before i understood what it was.

The airlines state it's against their fair use policy so if someone breaks a "fair use policy" can that be grounds for legal action ?

 

I didn't read the article linked so I donno if it mentioned it but I did read somewhere that a donation system was set up to help them fight the lawsuit.
Its a genius loophole tbh. Instead of throwing toys out of the pram they should be looking to make their service more efficient based off this. Unfortunately they'll just end up raising the price of tickets all round and further reduce popularity on some routes.

 

It also strikes me that even if the end user is breaking the law but bailing out part way through the full journey, just making that information available is in no way illegal...

 

Tell that to the Pirate Bay

 

That's probably the nub of the issue: letting people know that this loophole exists is one thing, but setting up a web-based service to actively help people to exploit the loophole (and earning a profit while doing so) is a completely different matter.

I highly doubt it's illegal, but if it is indeed against their ToS/FUP then he probably doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Of course it's stupid that this loophole even exists in the first place...

 

Systematic violation of tos of american airlines in a post 9/11 world.

If you don't expect that to get you into trouble you need to wake up and face reality, no matter how dumb the price policy and the attached conditions are.

 

no where in the article did it mention he was earning a profit....

 

What does 9/11 have to do with the terms of service of American airlines ?

 

Whether or not he's making money off the site is kind of a side issue really. If the loophole is against their ToS and he's actively helping people to exploit it then it's still a problem.

 

@Corky42, they can yell terrorism if someone complains or circumvents their policies, effectively giving them permission to do whatever they want.

 

It's not against their ToS, it's against their fair use policy.
I'm no legal beagle but isn't one a legally binding contract and the other isn't ?

Yea because like that's going to stand up in a court of law...Ohh wait this is America.

 

Unless whatever method he is using to harvest the flight data has an associated terms of use or terms of service from the airline, neither are relevant to the website owner. Surely it would be the passengers that are breaking them.

 

Its not as if the airlines can strap you to the seat. I can just imagine stewards/stewardesses/attendants/ompaloompas or what ever they call themselves these days, standing over you with tasers ordering you to remain in your seat because you "paid for the whole trip".
If airlines had an ounce of intelligence they would exploit this themselves and look at trying to get more passengers on at the stop over or reduce their fuel use since they don't need as much.
I understand the fact they can charge more due to direct flights becoming full and them using price adjustment to charge more for remaining seats but if a longer flight is cheaper then I fail to see how they loose out, if anything it will push up prices of the longer flight.

 

It seems they revoke frequent flyer points and other perks if you are found to be doing this.

 

since he didn't have a contract with them so the airlines ToS doesn't count -its a moot point as its fair use , which isn't legally binding.


and he didn't profit either or earn money - its definitely not a side issue (and neither the airlines nor article mention it)

 

Exactly.

The crowd funding is up at 61K as I post this. It has mildly renewed my faith in crowd funding.