Lufthansa Suing Passenger Over Hidden City Ticketing
Lufthansa has taken an extreme step towards fighting passengers who use the the “hidden city” ticketing trick. The practice involves passengers leaving their journey at a layover point, instead of making a final connection. The reason for this is that you can get much cheaper flights on some occasions this way, compared to booking a direct flight to your real destination.
But this trick and some others are generally a breach of the contract of carriage between the passenger and the airline. And Lufthansa has taken a passenger, who didn’t show up for the last leg of his ticketed journey, to court.
Court documents say that an unnamed male passenger booked a return flight from Oslo to Seattle, which had a layover in Frankfurt. The passenger used all legs of the outbound flight, but did not catch the Frankfurt to Oslo return flight. He instead flew on a separate Lufthansa reservation from Frankfurt to Berlin. Lufthansa saw this as a violation of their terms and conditions and is seeking around $2,385 in compensation. A district court dismissed the lawsuit in December, but Lufthansa has filed the appeal against the decision.
Conclusion
Lufthansa is clearly seeking to make an example and dissuade people from the practice. Getting sued will surely scare people from testing out airlines with the “hidden city” ticketing trick or other similar ways that save passengers money on air travel. These tricks come with risks, such as having your whole itinerary canceled, lost luggage, being banned from a loyalty program etc. And now there’s a risk of being sued as well. Let’s see how this court case plays out in Germany.
Let us know your thoughts!
Hat Tip: Independent
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I think that what Lufthansa has done is succeed in driving passengers away.
Peoples plan change mid journeys during business trips and the airlines are never accommodating even for the multi-million milers.
It’s still amazing how some airlines make money ( discount airlines) and the big airlines still try to rip off passengers with hidden charges and poorer service, even for business and first class passengers
Screw Lufthansa. Glad they lost. The airlines deserve what they get with theyr’e crazy ticketing pricing strategies.
It does not make sense, I think the guy should sue back the company. Here is an example, I come to Home Depot or Lowes to buy 3 special screws but they only sell 1 screw or 2 screws or a box of 4 screws. A box of 5 selling for $26, a box of 2 selling for $18 and a box of 1 selling for $10. I would buy a box of 4 since it is $2 cheaper and I don’t think Home Depot or Lowes would go after me since I only need 3 of them. In addition, who know what happen he may say he was not sure at the time he bought the ticket he did not know where he would go for the last leg. By the way, if he bought from Southwest (assume SW fly in Europe), the system would kick him out since in one day he flew 2 different places.
But did you leave the screw you didn’t need in the shelf? It could have fallen and someone step on it hurting themselves.
He should have not booked Lufthansa fort the Frankfurt to Berlin flight. He made it too easy for them to see what he was doing.
I bet the airline still have the seat to a standby passenger and still made extra money. Just seams crazy the airline got all the money they asked for the seat and the passenger did not want the seat infact he bought morr seats from the airline. Of this is cheaper seams to me the airline has a problem with their pricing. I think the airline should give the passenger money back for not using the seat.