“… taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father.
That’s all because when he checked in at the ticket counter, the agent saw his North Carolina drivers license, and suspect that the reservation which included a flight from Charlotte to New York was really a throwaway or ‘hidden city’ ticket. In other words, the boy was traveling to Charlotte but had booked a point beyond – in this case, New York, because it was cheaper. And they had no intention of flying all of the segments they’d booked.”
Interrogated and forced to buy another ticket because he was suspected of using Skiplagged(he was, but there’s no way the agent knew).
Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power.
Straight up, whether or not they currently do (I'm not a lawyer), antics like this one by the airline should constitute false imprisonment (or, more likely, some marginally lesser charge) with massive civil penalties (I'm fine with tens of thousands per instance as a gentle place to start). A private corporation's goons interrogating a minor in a security room over the kid using a trick to turn airline pricing tricks against the airline seems excessive. If you don't want your pricing tactics used in a way other than how you designed them, maybe design better pricing tactics that don't gouge customers, but ffs, don't lock a kid in a room over it, you absolute monsters.
Sure, but then what? In this case, the answer is "of course not, but if you want to go home on our airline, you talk to us first". Not everyone can eat the cost and disruption of a second (urgent!) ticket, and they know that.
Doesn't the airline ticket, per various FAA rules, constitute a requirement for the airline to get you home somehow? They have not, at the time they have suspicion but no evidence/proof/confession, confirmed any violation of TOS, and as far as I understand it, legally speaking, the kid has every right to say "fuck you, you're putting me on that airplane or a comparable one".
> An airline can refuse to transport a passenger for the reasons listed in its contract of carriage, a legal agreement between the passenger and airline, so long as the refusal is not discriminatory...
Huh. TIL. I'd personally change those laws dramatically, but luckily for the airlines, I'm not realistically considering a career change to being a politician :)
Thanks for citing some links, I misunderstood a few things!
I am not American so: is it legal for someone else than the police (and similar governmental agencies) to ask you questions and force tout to go somewhere?
I can understand that they can "citizen arrest" you until the police comes but that would be it.
In France they would do your if they have reasonable suspicion, but only until the police arrives. If you do not want to talk to them you just wait (and if you did not do anything you grab the popcorn to see how this is going to end).
I told my children that whatever happens, they just insist on having the police called. They had to use this one and the security company immediately let them go.
Citizen's arrest only exists if there's reasonable suspicion a proper criminal event has occurred, and conveys no liability protection: if the person "citizen arrested" is found to have not committed a crime, the "arrestor" can be civilly sued for huge sums of money, and potentially criminally charged, themselves (though this is, I understand, uncommon).
In general I can't think of a way private interrogations are legal in the US, though the airline will likely claim that the kid was "always free to leave" and get away with this.
maybe they are incentivized via extra money to detect this? or more probable is a simple power trip/revenge by someone that gets yelled at a lot by angry passengers.
> “… taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket
I find it staggering a corporation has the ability to detain and interrogate a citizen who bought a product from them and dared to use it. What on earth is going on here.
Imagine if you were at the mall and Apple Store employees tried to drag you into a back room because you bought a laptop from them that they suspect you'll use to try and decrypt things they don't want you to.
Apple could say "if you don't come to the back room, we'll never sell you another Macbook, and we'll delete all of your iCloud stuff right now". Quite a few folks would find that a compelling reason to go have said discussion.
They can't prevent you from leaving, but they can apply consequences if you do.
What if Apple said "if you don't give is $500 cash, we're going never sell you another MacBook". Is that not extortion?
I think context matters a lot more here than people think. They had no evidence he intended to get off at Charlotte. This was classic coersion and extortion. This was not a contract negotiation, or even a contract dispute. Both parties were wilfully entered into a contract, that was being upheld, with no proof it wasn't going to be, until after the coercion.
> I find it staggering a corporation has the ability to detain and interrogate a citizen who bought a product from them and dared to use it.
I’m almost certain he was not detained in a legal sense. It was probably more of a strong suggestion that he should go with them to the security office. Someone with more experience probably could have seen through it and either politely declined to go with them, or if they insist go with them and tell them that he of course intends to travel to New York.
I'm now also staggered that we've reached a point where people think it's OK for a corporation to make "strong suggestions" for people to go into back rooms and be grilled about products they've bought, and they use "technicalities" and careful wording to say "oh, it's not that bad".
It's horrific the power corporations have over us.
> staggered that we've reached a point where people think it's OK
I did not say it is OK. I said that is what likely happened.
Legally it is a word of difference if they put their hands on you and force you into a room vs if they say "We need to ask a few more questions, follow me this way." in a no-nonsense manner. The second works against a teenager some of the time.
The first is illegal (depending on circumstances) It is very hard to write laws which prevent the second one.
> It's horrific the power corporations have over us.
Here in Australia at least, we have signs stating that "All bags must be presented for inspection" when leaving stores. These have no legal basis and customers are free to refuse, which I did in the past, I guess I have to start doing it again.
Of course it comes with some somewhat heated discussions at times when you say no, their desired effect of course.
We really do need to fight back against such egregious overreach such as this instance, I guess that means fighting on all fronts.
But the whole thing is just coercion. Sounds more like something the mafia would do than an airline. But then again, this is America so maybe the mafia is how airlines got started.
> Plus, you can only book these one way because if you throw away anything other than the last flight in your itinerary the rest of the trip gets cancelled.
I did the round trip once - well 3/4 trip anyway - back when I was a poor student. I woke up really early to board a bus for a 3 hour drive to a faraway city, where I then boarded a plane that less than an hour later had me back in my originating city (the airline's main "hub.") There I changed flights and continued on to my destination. On the return segment days later, however, I left at the midpoint and went home. This cost several hundred dollars less than the more direct alternative.
Airlines tend to overcharge at their hub cities because they face little competition.
I don't see this as a moral quandary either way, it's more like counting cards at Blackjack: the casinos don't want you to do it but it's not illegal, so if you can do it successfully, great. But if you get caught you have to pay the price.
I mean I do feel a little bad in retrospect, there was probably some gate agent announcing "last call for passenger 'zugi'", and then they finally closed the doors and took off. I was sitting at home by then. There are hundreds of reasons why passengers miss flights, so I'm not sure how I'd get "caught".
I suppose there is no obligation for either party to follow up after the fact, and even so you could give a “legitimate” reason - although if it’s in the contract I wonder what legitimate reason they would deem ok?
It never occurred to me that we've been victims of surge pricing long before it became the new hip way to rake in bonus cash thanks to the example of Uber. Air travel has always been this shell game. Travel from point A to point B should be the same, no matter what, no matter when. This would render all of this trouble- the suspicion, the workarounds, the enforcement- moot.
Why should prices be the same? Airlines are private companies in an already heavily regulated industry with thin margins and high operational costs. It may be nice to have something more like public air transit, but we can’t even figure that out consistently for ground travel.
Are you an airline? If not, the benefits to you of set costs should be obvious. Now consider that the vast, vast majority of humanity are not airlines, meaning that the net benefit to humanity would be enormous.
I don't know about being priced the same, but certainly I shouldn't be penalized for _not_ taking an extra seat on another flight, right? The nonsense that makes hidden city viable should be banned.
Exactly, the one thing I oft think is when I hear about some metro, such as bart, or MUNI, or some other big-USA-city-metro woes, like NYC subway etc... complain that they need more money to handle efficiencies or some stupid shit ;
I always think that every single USA-based transit administrator, or even train conductor, should be forced to do an internship in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong-kong, shanghai beijing etc...
You want to know what VALUE YOU SHOULD BE _PROVIDING_ then go find a rail/transit system that fn works, is clean, is on time, isnt a crippling financial bullshit on the people... go do some transits in these countries to see what a shameful position USA is in this regard. And you - specifically and personally who work for these transit orgs in the US and are too stupid to even see the simple truth of how Fd the US is in this regard.
Everyone has always known that if you buy your tickets in advance, I think 2 weeks was the sweet spot, they were cheaper than buying them day of type of thing. Hell, even buying concert tickets in advance used to offer a slight discount, as the promoter use use the money from pre-sales to pay deposits.
You'd still likely need an auction system on top of fixed A-to-B prices, since first-come-first-serve might not be the most optimal system for holiday travel.
> The passenger has reportedly received a 3 year ban from the airline.
I wouldn't be surprised if some major airlines would have a shared banned passenger database. Something like a no-fly list but for people who broke various fine-print airline rules. He might find himself not being able to fly on any airline for 3 years.
> Plus, you can only book these one way because if you throw away anything other than the last flight in your itinerary the rest of the trip gets cancelled.
Engineer in me twitched.
You can fly any prefix of flights, and drop any suffix. :)
Most airlines are truly awful. It's pushed me towards budget ones for domestic flights (Southwest, Frontier, Spirit, etc) because at least they're upfront with "Yeah, we suck, but we'll charge you half the fare".
Flying internationally, KLM has never done me wrong (I suspect the average Dutch man being 6ft tall helps seat sizing) and I recently had a rather pleasant flight on Turkish Airways.
> Assess the Passenger any amounts owed to UA, including but not limited to for seat blocking, for the actual value of the service or ancillary product, and for the full value of a Ticket, which shall be the difference between the lowest fare applicable to the Passenger’s actual itinerary and the fare actually paid, including after the transportation or service have been provided.
Which at most would entitle them to try to charge him for the difference for the direct flight, but even then (IANAL) seems like there's substantial room for argument, if you tried to push back.
> Such conduct constitutes fraud and a violation of Rule 6 of United’s Contract of Carriage. Accordingly, United demands that you cease and desist these unauthorized practices immediately and that you reimburse United in the amount of $3,236.76 which represents the difference between the cost of the tickets that you purchased and the cost of the travel taken, within 10 business day of receipt of this letter.
This, from an airline that has declared bankruptcy twice in the past decade. The audacity of modern American corporations is best observed through airlines. United Airlines begged for (and received) stimulus during COVID after it blew literally all of its cash on stock buybacks in the year or two prior.
Ah! Fare arbitrage surfaces again! Quoting below -
"when one individual is traveling from Millbrae station, a suburb south of San Francisco, to Embarcadero station which is downtown San Francisco, and at the same time a second individual is traveling from Glen Park station, a residential area in San Francisco,to Berkeley station. The two tickets cost (according to 2014 fare chart) $4.50 and $4.20 respectively. But if during the segment between Glen Park station and Embarcadero station the two travelers agree to exchange their tickets the cost becomes $5.10 and $1.85. So from a total cost of $8.70 a simple ticket swap saves $1.75 or 20% "
Someday I might write about the amount of light and fury generated by the paragraph above.
Bullied him until he confessed? Probably using police tactics: "We can see you used Skiplagged", even though they can't really. "We'll go easy on you if confess, buy another ticket, and we'll ban you only for 3 years as opposed to for the rest of your life!".
I've seen TSA and airline workers in various airports get their sadistic pleasure out of bullying people. I'll always remember watching helplessly as they forced my elderly parents to the side, for the "extra" security check, all while making fun of them not speaking English well, and laughing at their visible distress and confusion. It's the little bright stop in their day to fight the monotony, low pay and boredom.
Who's implying these people are seeking truth? They are seeking a short cut to do what they want. Police just want a closed case, and if they think you did it, you did it. Coercion just makes the amount of time they have to spend on it much less.
> The boy’s father said he booked the ticket using Skiplagged, which helps find such throwaway options, but he didn’t know that airlines frowned on this. The dad always books with Skiplagged, and has for years, but the child had never even traveled alone before. The boy was on his own and confessed.
The family (and account used to purchase the tickets) was likely red flagged. This is harder to catch if you don't check in with a person (using a kiosk or app), but it is easy to imagine that there's a note on the account in the checkin screen for the employee to see... which an unaccompanied minor would need to use.
If any luggage was asked to only be checked through Charlotte, then that raises additional red flags.
The airline likely needs to do some due diligence. The individual is an unaccompanied minor flying. Imagine what they airline would need to do if he didn't get on the connecting flight to New York.
That said - it would likely have been caught in Charlotte as the unaccompanied minor is escorted to the next flight and ended up much the same way.
If the youth is checking in by themselves, it is not unreasonable to believe that they brought an extra bag and would need to check in something... or that they got a bag that didn't fit into the "it needs to be this small to check in".
I've... stretched the definition of "one carry on and one camera bag" in the past (my camera bag is about https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1547750-REG/lowepro_l... and then I've got a small hiking backpack with laptop pouch for my carry on bag). If it wasn't a camera bag (or my single carry on wasn't as compressible) I would likely have had to check one in at the gate... as it was I've always been able to put the camera bag under the seat in front of me and the carry in in the space between/around the harder shelled monstrosities that people try to stuff into the overhead.
If I had two carry on bags rather than a carry on and camera bag ("We may allow up to two carry on bags, space permitting in the plane") or one didn't fit in the bracket at the counter without smooshing I would would have had to check one in.
(Aside: I have never skiplagged - I just don't trust camera bags or laptops to baggage handlers and if packing light results in no checked luggage, all the better)
If the youth didn't know the nuances of how to pack for such a situation there are a number of things that would be gotchas that would indicate to the employee at the counter that this would be skiplagging... along with the existing red flags of the drivers license, and the family history of doing it.
---
It would have been interesting if they (the airline) were to rebook someone they suspect of skiplagging onto a partner airline that has a different connecting stop. "This flight is full, so we're booking you on Delta with a connection in Atlanta. Fortunately, it will get into New York City an hour earlier, we will be contacting your guardian there about the earlier arrival."
It depends, if you're going through quarantine/international you sometimes have to pick up your bags and then re-check them.
For example, flying SYD to SFO via LAX.
Flying through the US for any international flight you always have to collect your bags, clear customs and immigration, then re-check them.
The US does not have the concept of international transit lounges like other countries do, where you can get off plane 1 and sit in a room that is not technically inside the country (so you don't clear customs or immigration), then just get on plane 2 and go to another country.
I suspect there would be cases where it's cheaper to book a connecting flight through the US to some other country (or US city) and just get off at your first stop.
Makes sense, given the massive security theater in the US and the fact that it's so off the beaten path of the rest of the world that most flights probably don't just "transit" through the US on the way to somewhere else.
I was in South America for a year, and tons of Europeans had a nightmare flying to South America because the majority of flights "transited" the US, so they had to get a visa and all that for a 1 hour layover each way.
> This is harder to catch if you don't check in with a person
I’ve been in situations where when I try to check in via app or kiosk it says to see an agent (passport details needed to be updated, seat change, etc.).
I imagine they could do something similar here pretty easily.
I don't think it was an option for the unaccompanied minor to not check in with an agent. Part of the thing being that they'll have an escort to the gate and between connecting flights - and that can't be done at a kiosk or app.
The skiplagging was going to fall apart real quickly, it's just a matter if it happens at check in, or when trying to leave at the connecting flight when the connecting flight escort says "this way" and the minor says "but my parents are at the passenger pickup area."
Airlines take their custodianship of unaccompanied minors quite seriously.
Seems like we need some legislation to prevent airlines from price gouging direct flights. Any flight that includes a stopover in a city should not be cheaper than flying to that city nonstop.
I try to avoid American Airlines like the plague at this point honestly. Last few flights I've had with them the landing was so rough it practically threw my back out. I've not had that problem with other airlines. It's like AA can't afford wheels. Doesn't surprise me they're doing insane stuff like this too.
> Flying to Charlotte instead of New York, at a cheaper price, is stealing.
This is perversion of morality at its peak. Just because the airline prices the direct flights higher than an indirect flight through a connection doesn't mean you're stealing. To suggest that the airline's right to profit (from a practice of questionable ethics) outweighs my right as a consumer to leave the airport and cancel the rest of my trip is outrageous. To call this "stealing" as though you're taking the property of the airline. Nothing is "stolen" here. If I go to a restaurant and pay for a three course meal, but decide I'm full after two courses, the restaurant can't sue me for not eating a third plate.
The kid in this article wasn't even in violation of a contract: just because he intended to leave the airport doesn't mean he'd violated a contract yet. I can't even imagine how the airline would take action against a passenger for this. Talk about thoughtcrime.
Yeah, this feels like the same thinking behind "the salary we offered you was calculated to just barely allow comfortable living in the city you applied from. So if you now work remotely and move to a cheaper city, you're stealing from us!!"
Then again, that's exactly how regional distribution of media works and the reason why media are still licensed per country. It's the same insane logic, just hidden behind contract and licensing law.
Oh, unless you're a company of course, then it's just arbitrage.
It isn't stealing per se, but it is a violation of the agreement you made with the airline, and it is within their rights to terminate the rest of the contract and ban the customer.
Your second point is the more important one, and to my mind, the reason they call a lawyer. The kid hadn't done anything yet. The appropriate response from the gate agent should have been to remind the kid that not travelling to the booked destination was a violation of the terms of carriage and might result in additional fees.
Didn't the father make the agreement, not the son?
And the passenger is identified as a "teenager". Which could be of age 18+ or 17-. If younger than 18, they can't legally enter a contract anyway.
But they've learned a valuable lesson in the adversarial relation between most corporations and the "consumer". The agreement has little to do with the basics of paying for something and still not using it. Like many TOS and EULAs.
At least in my experience a lot of airlines specifically say that buying the connecting ticket with the intention of not taking the whole flight is grounds for cancelling your purchase. That doesn't make it any less stupid, or wasteful... but it's there in print.
I feel like putting the other party in a security room and interrogating them until they tell you something you want to hear isn't exactly a valid way to "anticipate" a breach of contract.
I would love to know of another service or product where NOT using the product results in being detained. Airlines sound more and more like a cartel than anything these days.
The correct way to fix it is for every leg offered by an airline to be priced comparably, with the per-leg pricings transparently displayed to customers as part of the booking process, such that skiplagging is no longer a necessary tactic to avoid getting gouged by the airline cartels. But since that might cost these businesses some money, there's limited legislative pressure to force them to do the right things.
I don't understand the logic behind charging less for two legs than for just one. That sounds incredibly shady to me, and for an airline to be able to enforce it like this should definitely be illegal.
It sounds like abuse of market power, rather than an honest supply-demand with an eye on their costs, thing. They try to extort more for the shorter trip due to artificial scarcity.
It is abuse of market power. They are trying to extract monopoly rents out of people that need to be in Charlotte because they dominate that airport. They can’t do that in NYC because of heavy competition.
There are effectively four major airlines. That’s just not nearly enough to avoid anti-competitive bullshit like this.
> So, you're probably wondering, why does American control most of the flights here? It's because Charlotte Douglas International Airport is an American hub. The airline has 90% percent of the nearly 700 daily flights here. That lets it set whatever price it wants, says Ted Reed of Charlotte, who covers airlines for Forbes.
> The answer is pretty simple: We're basically a one-airline town. There's little competition for American Airlines, says Scott Mayerowitz , the executive news director thepointsguy.com, a website that tracks the cost of flying.
> "It is pure supply and demand."
> "Well, I don't want to minimize the fact that this is a monopoly carrier … basically a monopoly company providing service," says Reed. "So of course, they're going to charge more. But a lot of people think the the trade-off is worth it and you know, and that's why you see the companies move here, a lot of companies move here because of the service."
> "People always say to me: Fares are too high and the airlines are horrible. But yet the parking lot at the airport is always full."
Wether 90% (or X%) market share qualifies as a monopoly is an age-old debate.
It is a supply and demand effect. Prices aren’t generated based on a fixed markup over costs.
It’s way more expensive to fly into smaller regional hubs like Charlotte because the supply of airlines that want to maintain a presence there is smaller than a national hub like New York City.
That’s how you get these upstart airlines that take over a corner of the US when the prices get too high. Then the big airlines drop their prices to compete because the supply went up.
As a customer, this would feel like a restaurant charging me extra for not finishing my meal. It'd especially funnel me to a competitor who doesn't do this, making their $X vs. $Y price comparison seem better due to no disclosed extra deposit.
Seriously? Kudos for somehow ironically incentivizing both waste reduction and over-consumption (overeating to avoid penalties). I don't even like sushi, and I'm offended on their customer's behalf lol.
I don't think there's anything to be offended at here.
They are usually implemented to prevent people from ordering a lot all at once and then not finishing most of it. At all of the places I have been with such rules, you don't get charged if you leave a small amount on the plate, so it's not like you have to shove it in your mouth if you are truly full. The point is just order a reasonable amount at a time.
Another way to fix it is to accept that a better product (i.e. skiplagged) has entered the market and attempt to improve their own (shitty pricing UI). Instead they're intimidating minors.
Because that's a premise of a fair market? I realize there are plenty of examples in other industries of companies suing their way into dominant market share, but it's a practice that's just antithetical to a free market. If someone makes a better product (that complies with regulations), in a fair capitalist world competitors need to catch up. Not engage in shady tactics to bully their customers into accepting their own.
I realize America doesn't work this way but it's something I think a lot of people would agree with
Again, why would the existing airlines agree to this?
Why do they want a “fair” market?
There may be some, but I can’t think of an existing for-profit market leader wanting a “fair” market.
Seems to be the fatal flaw in capitalism. Companies will do anything to get an edge, including playing with the meta-rules of the system. They'll do anything else first before benefitting the customer
The UK's National Rail used to have a "4 for 2" offer. Four people could travel together with a 50% discount if booked in advance.
One day our friend was ill but three of us weren't going to miss the only sunny day of British summer so we went without him.
The ticket agent on the train was quite insistent that we were breaking the rules...and I guess in some sense we were, as the tickets did say four people had to travel together. We ended up with a "One time courtesy exception" so we could continue our journey.
National Rail later revised the program to a 33% discount for groups of 3 or more.
"Voluntarily" may be doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. People are often not fully aware of what they can and can not refuse to do. Airports have gotten a lot more complicated on that front in the last 20 years.
Depending on the age of the child, they may not be able to legally consent to whatever happened, especially if coercion was involved. I suggest giving the victim some leeway here, given that so many airlines have a track record of passenger abuse.
Ha. Ha. Suddenly everyone's an expert in what constitutes detention. There's actually a big difference between "literally not detaining" someone and not detaining someone.
I think the detention naysayers in this thread have failed to consider that the people who practice this type of behavior are experts. Frequently the whole business of these interrogators is to make sure that someone is "not literally" detained, but that they are in fact detained, in the sense that they do not feel free to leave. In this way, the interrogator has not committed a crime or malfeasance by falsely detaining a person, but they isolate them and make them feel as though they need to answer questions.
The worst part is that there is almost no clear coaching for how a person is supposed to get through this type of situation. With the police, we can give clear advice: (1) ask "am I being detained or am I free to leave?" (2) Refuse to engage in conversation; (3) Ask for a lawyer. But these aren't police. They will tell you that you are not being detained. They have a few hundred dollars of your money and maybe a bunch of your clothes, and they just need you to answer a few questions before you get on the plane.
What are you going to say? "I refuse to answer questions without a lawyer"? "I refuse to remain in this tiny office answering questions"? Ok. Great. You're banned, and maybe turned over to TSA for a real custodial interrogation for acting so suspiciously at an airport.
Anyway, all this to say that your word games with "literally" this and that are not clever because this is actually much worse than a real custodial interrogation because the rights and obligations are much less clear and that lack of clarity accrues to the corporation's advantage.
If they are airline employees and not cops I'm not aware of any way they can detain you, short of a citizen's arrest which usually requires them to have observed you committing a felony?
In this case I would just declare that I'm leaving and if any resistance, demand the real cops be called or call them yourself. Same if they refuse to return your cash and/or luggage.
> The worst part is that there is almost no clear coaching for how a person is supposed to get through this type of situation.
Not true. Before you buy someone a skiplegged ticket you explain to them how this works. Why their ticket will say a different destination from where they want to go and why the airlines want to discourage the practice. Explain what things can go wrong (no checked-in luggage, things can go wrong with diversions).
If someone can’t understand the concept, or it confuses them, or they are too naive or too honest to play this “deception” or too busy to receive this information then just don’t and buy a regular ticket.
> What are you going to say?
Simple. They might ask you where you are traveling to. Answer “new york”. If they ask “but where are you really traveling?” answer “new york man, how many times you want to ask the same question?” if they ask you anything about New York answer whatever you want as long as the answer implies you are planing to go there.
Hey, this is great advice. Maybe it is as simple as "just lie about your destination and don't give up any additional information." I don't think that's as easy as you make it sound, but at least it's a clear strategy.
On the other hand, I think a lot of the difficulty in situations like this comes from not knowing that this is about the "skiplag" issue (or not knowing if it's only about that issue). I think there's also a likely scenario where the airline starts investigating you for one thing and just sort of throws the book of accusations at you when they don't like how the skiplag interrogation is going.
My first comment was more about that: the private actor interrogating people without clear rules or limits.
Do you think there's a situation in an airport, of all places, where you refusing to comply with a security guard's orders goes well for you? I comply with everything an airport official says because a) I'm brown and b) I'm at the airport to go on a flight, not argue with some power-tripping douche.
I think an airport is probably one of the least worst places: a very public place with lots of witnesses and cameras, plus its own relatively relaxed police force.
If you have a flight to catch, of course, the calculus changes but once that becomes a lost cause, all bets are off.
So more cameras to catch you slipping up once or thinking you have the "right" to do something, when in reality you don't because it's an airport.
If I miss my flight I'm more motivated to catch the next one, not test my available civil liberties in front of poorly-paid ex-military. Best case you end up detained (in the real sense) for a long time and potentially acquitted in court, months later and having incurred plenty of mental trauma. Worst case you just go to jail. Sounds like a lose-lose
It seems to me like the kid thought he didn't have a choice but to go with them. That would be forcing him. If it was typical security/police talk, it probably went something like, "You need to come with us. We need to ask you a few questions". I'd guess most teenagers would be too intimidated and scared to do anything else. If they didn't specifically inform him that he didn't have to go with them or answer their questions, then it sounds like he was detained
> A teen traveling solo for the first time from Gainesville, Florida to Charlotte was taken to a security room by American Airlines. There he was interrogated – and forced to buy a new ticket – according to the boy’s father.
The airline may have asked nicely and the son complied and never tried or asked to leave. That’s not being detained. We will probably only know the details if this goes to court and it comes out or if video of the interaction is released.
If the boy is an underage teen, then it would also be illegal to interrogate him without the presence of a guardian.
If I am going about my business, but you request that I stop what I'm doing to follow you to have a chat, you are detaining me. period. you pussyfooting around this like it's not is just disingenuous at best
> If the boy is an underage teen, then it would also be illegal to interrogate him without the presence of a guardian.
Was this the government police doing this? Or a private company?
> If I am going about my business, but you request that I stop what I'm doing to follow you to have a chat, you are detaining me. period. you pussyfooting around this like it's not is just disingenuous at best
So all of those “on-the-street” YouTubers asking questions are detaining people? Even if those people don’t stop?
Yes, on-the-street people are detaining people from doing what they are intending to do. Some people might not mind, but if you are interfering with someone it's detaining them. There are multiple definitions, and you seem to be stuck on the one.
Look, it’s quite obvious you’re wanting to win the most pedantic user on the internet. If you are a private citizen, a local cop, or a federal agent, if you prevent me from going about my day to have a conversation that I don’t want to have under threat of not being allowed to do what I’m trying to do, you’ve detained me. Why you are hung up on this I have no idea. Personal pet peeve maybe, but having a conversation in the spirit of rather than the pedantry of will be much more productive.
I see nothing in that definition that contradicts the stated facts.
> In criminal law, to detain an individual is to hold them in custody
> Custody is the state of physically holding or controlling a person
If a person positions to block my way (especially in an official capacity), this is detainment, brief as it may be and as hard as it may be to prove in a trial.
> Was this the government police doing this? Or a private company?
Its detaining someone in either case, though the difference you point to makes a difference in whether it is illegal (or, at least, in which law controls whether it is.)
With that quoted line, I was specifically referring their mention of laws related to interrogation.
As a civilian, I can ask a lost child what their guardian was wearing to help locate them without breaking laws surrounding interrogation. Similarly, I can ask a child if they intend to fly to New York or if they intend to get off in North Carolina.
This entire article is based off the word of the father who has supposedly been flying with Skiplagged for over five years and somehow didn’t know that the airlines didn’t look favorably on it. That makes me just a little suspicious, since the time I heard of it my first question was “is this allowed”.
Intimidating and scaring people before they have done anything is worthy of outrage. That should not be acceptable at airports anywhere. And that's before you even consider that what the kid was trying to do was not unethical, so receiving any punishment whatsoever is outrageous.
That’s all because when he checked in at the ticket counter, the agent saw his North Carolina drivers license, and suspect that the reservation which included a flight from Charlotte to New York was really a throwaway or ‘hidden city’ ticket. In other words, the boy was traveling to Charlotte but had booked a point beyond – in this case, New York, because it was cheaper. And they had no intention of flying all of the segments they’d booked.”
Interrogated and forced to buy another ticket because he was suspected of using Skiplagged(he was, but there’s no way the agent knew).
Airports are a trip - full of low-barrier to entry jobs with way too much power.