

Travel firms sue creator of cheap airfare site - antman
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30634144

======
wcbeard10
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8813138)

------
taprun
In other news, United and Orbitz are about to learn of the Streisand
Effect[0]...

[0][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

~~~
saryant
United is already one of the most hated companies in the country, they don't
need to care.

------
bengali3
> Mr Zaman has launched a fundraising campaign to gather cash to fight the
> legal battle against United and Orbitz. So far he has raised $10,538
> (£6,776) of the $15,000 needed.

I'm guessing he'll need more than $15,000 ....

~~~
igor47
Has anyone found where to donate to this guy's legal fund? Seems like he wants
to fight and I'm really curious how this plays out in court.

~~~
dazc
[http://www.gofundme.com/skiplagged](http://www.gofundme.com/skiplagged)

------
brandonmenc
A better solution for the airlines is to stop selling tickets to passengers
who have a habit of deplaning halfway through a trip.

------
ikeboy
Reddit ama done a month ago here
[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2o831k/i_run_skiplagg...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2o831k/i_run_skiplagged_a_site_being_sued_by_united/)

------
justgottasay2
How dare this guy force Orbitz to lose approximately 38 minutes worth of
revenue...

------
thisone
considering, as the article says, this only works with one way tickets, and no
luggage, how many people would be taking advantage of this that a lawsuit is
necessary?

~~~
noer
if you don't ordinarily check luggage (like most people seem to do nowadays),
all you have to do is buy two one way tickets. the only downside is that
you'll get selected for extra screening more often.

~~~
dsl
A friend of mine would always get the dreaded SSSS because he booked lots of
last minute one way tickets for work.

Signing up for TSA PreCheck almost completely eliminated that problem. If you
are willing to give up a bunch of info and pay the government, you can skip
the "random screening."

------
supercanuck
I've just never understood this idea of forced price discrimination, the idea
that consumers are restricted in buying a product freely available.

~~~
saryant
Airfares aren't priced on a cost-plus basis, they're priced based on what the
markets will bear. For instance, MKE-BOS has no non-stop options, so lots of
airlines compete for one-stop business funneling passengers through their
hubs. This drives down prices.

Compare this to ORD-BOS, which only has a few non-stop options. Those non-stop
carriers (United, American and JetBlue) can charge a premium compared to, say,
Delta, which can only offer one-stop options.

Passengers in captive hubs looking at monopoly routes (Houston, Detroit,
Atlanta) have it even worse when looking for non-stop routes.

So a traveler looking to buy ORD-BOS will see high prices on the non-stops. I
frankly don't see the problem here—almost every product is priced based on
what the market will bear rather than cost+margin.

