That makes the legal theory much more comprehensible, rather than being a mere “crimes against our business model and we are petulant!” exercise; but it still doesn’t help me grasp how the pricing perversity continues(or why the airlines would care so much about the edge cases if they are relatively rare):
I can see being upset at the buyer failing to take part of a bundle of goods if one or more of them are of negative value(say I box up my electronics junk drawer and offer it on a “some gems, some trash; it’s free because figuring out which and dealing with it is your job” basis).
However, in the flight case I’m unclear on how any of the components of the bundle could have negative value: best case the airline gets to sell the seat twice; worst case an empty seat is slightly more fuel efficient and requires fewer in-flight peanuts than a full one.
If selling an A->B->C ticket for $X is a sound decision, selling an A->B->C ticket for $X and getting to either sell B->C again or not deliver B->C makes you strictly better off than if I’d taken all the flights.
Are they peevish because A->B is ‘supposed’ to cost some amount that makes it more valuable than $X + the benefit of a spare B->C?
Are there other forces at work(coverage mandates or planning based on ticket sales rather than ridership or something of that nature) that create B->C routes that routinely fly nearly empty entirely because people who want to go from A->B are snapping up cheap A->B->C tickets; but the price of the A->B->C ticket can’t rise to reflect the extra cost of B->C or just stop being offered if all the demand is for A->B?
This either seems like an overtly arrogant demand that customers comply with any pricing scheme the carrier feels will maximize profit; or evidence that there are some really perverse economics behind the price of certain routes.
As pointed out many times above, airlines go out of their way to either compensate or reimburse you for flights that you couldn’t get to for reasons that are out of your hands (mechanical issues, security lines, customs, etc) even if it’s completely not their fault. But going against their TOS is something they’re not a fan of.
As is usual with German judgments it’s difficult to work out exactly what the parties were arguing (we just have a brief statement that the defendant argued that the terms were not properly incorporated and/or were invalid; without setting out why they said they were invalid).
The judgment sets out what the judge thought about it and she ruled that the terms were validly incorporated, were something that travellers could expect to be in an airline’s terms but were nevertheless invalid because they breach the requirement for transparency in Article 307 Abs. 1 S. 2 BGB.
She decided that what that requires is that the traveller be able to determine - at the point of booking the ticket- what the additional charge for not completing the booked journey would be.
Lufthansa doesn’t have a system letting you do that, they just tell you that they will charge you what the price for the actual journey would have been if you’d booked it on the day.
She says the traveller has got no way of knowing what that will be when they book and of course, no one can check the price claimed by Lufthansa now.
I’m not sure that holds up because the traveller can presumably just plug his actual journey into the booking system and get a price?
She also suggests that even if the airline is entitled to recalculate the ‘actual’ journey, that should be on the basis of a journey Oslo-Frankfurt-Seattle-Frankfurt, rather than Oslo-Frankfurt-Seattle-Frankfurt-Berlin.
That’s on the basis that the Frankfurt-Berlin journey was legitimately booked and taken. He could quite happily have got out in Frankfurt and booked with another carrier to go to Berlin and Lufthansa wouldn’t have been able to claim for the flight to Berlin.
The thing about this case is that it’s giving an airing to Lufthansa policies which makes them look like a load of grumpy vindictive arseholes.
Yes, they may win and get 2,000 Euros back from this poor guy, and that might discourage other fliers from pulling the same trick.
However, almost none of us in this thread think that would be a fair result. We can’t see why the trick is wrong is wrong, nor can we understand the realistic economic basis for the airline’s argument.
That’s not a good look for the airline. Overall they may lose reputation and thereby future customers
Putting the above to one side, I like flying Lufthansa except for their 8Kg cabin luggage limit.
Absolutely agreed, no matter how legally they’re in the right, it doesn’t mean they have to be this vindictive. I’ve had nothing but excellent experiences with their airline, as well.
I can’t get past one simple question. How does walking away from your flight at a layover harm the airline?
Another thing that bothers me is that if I take a non-direct flight, change my mind about my plans for whatever reason, and decide to take the train home, the airline is arguing that I have no right to change my mind.
About the only thing I can possibly see is that airlines can get into significant trouble with the security services and airports if passengers who are supposed to be on the plane, aren’t.
Other than that, I suppose you’re getting into mystical areas of “we were unable to sell that seat at the staggering price we would otherwise allegedly have been able to obtain for it. You have, deliberately and with malice, undermined our capitalist right and duty to screw every last penny we can out of travelers”.
To quibble a little - the airline is not saying that you can’t change your mind. They are saying that if you change your mind and the journey you actually take would have cost more than the journey you booked, they are entitled to charge you additional money - because you booked a ticket which specifically does not allow you to change your journey details without paying extra.
Their terms do specifically state that if you decide you don’t need any unused travel coupon (i.e. your ticket), then if you booked a refundable ticket, you can cancel the unused portion and get your money back.
So from Lufthansa’s point of view, if this guy wanted to do this, he should have booked a refundable return ticket, then cancelled the last leg, got his refund and booked the Frankfurt-Berlin ticket.
They would have had no problem with that but he would have had to pay significantly more for the refundable ticket in the first place.
Most people of course don’t book refundable tickets because airlines charge you a fortune for the privilege.
It’s amazing how the use of technology to find and maximise price efficiencies is apparently only supposed to work in their favour.
The number of replies that can be summarized as “airlines don’t like this because they would prefer to be paid more” and/or “let me restate the policy in slightly different words for you” is kind of amazing. I guess it’s a species of mansplaining?
But anyway, a point I don’t think I’ve seen raised yet: there are already natural disincentives to using hidden-city tickets. One is that you can’t check baggage. Another, much more serious, is that the airline has no obligation to deliver you to the hidden city. Any number of circumstances might lead to them rerouting you. As long as they deliver you to your ticketed destination, you have no recourse.
They can enforce it by ticket cancellation. But the issue in the case of the OP is a lawsuit - that is, can they sue you and fine you above and beyond what you have already paid them. And that is going to depend on the jurisdiction they sue you in. In the US damages typically have to be proven. My non-lawyer’s understanding is that US law generally doesn’t allow enforcement of purely punitive clauses regardless of what a contract may say. (Though many companies have gotten way with them for decades, for example, early cancellation fees in cell phone contracts that are not pro-rated.) So, since the airline didn’t have to pay extra to not carry him on the final leg but in fact saved on fuel, I’d think it’s not a sure bet that they could sue for “damages” in the US and win. On the other hand, they can claim they are out the money they would have billed if he had said where he was going when he booked the ticket. So, it seems like the kind of case that could go either way. But, again, IANAL.
And if you buy a gallon when you need a quart because of the lower total price you are smart. It is cheaper for me to go to a restaurant supply place and buy a pound of herbs than to buy four ounces in the grocery store. It pisses me off that most of the twelve ounces will go to waste, but that’s what the numbers dictate.
That’s what is happening here except he’s getting sued
Yeah, I agree, and that’s why the comparison editorialized at the end doesn’t make sense. The situation with the airline is about total cost savings, not a unit cost differential. Gaming flight bookings based on per unit cost would be really, really weird, and serve no purpose for the consumer unless their goal was to spend as much time on an airplane as possible.
In my experience Lufthansa is one of the better airlines, and I don’t remember anyone weighing my cabin-baggage bag ever.
Having said that, I still think suing someone for not completing their flight, apart from being a dick move, is counterproductive and bad for PR, and they should be able to figure that out for themselves.
This literally makes no sense at all. The money for the complete trip is already payed for so the company is literally saving money because they are carrying less weight after the passenger disembarks.
