American Airlines is suing a travel website that sells tickets that let people save money by exploiting a quirk in airline pricing.
American sued Skiplagged Inc. in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, this week, accusing the website of deception. It threatened to cancel every ticket that Skiplagged has sold.
In a practice called skiplagging and hidden-city ticketing, travelers book a flight that includes at least one stop, but they leave the plane during a layover. Generally skiplagging is not illegal, but airlines claim that it violates their policies.
Last month, Americanbooted a 17-year-oldfrom a flight and banned him for three years when he tried to use the tactic to fly from Gainesville, Fla., to Charlotte, NC, on a ticket that listed New York City as his destination. For the teen, that was cheaper than booking a flight directly to Charlotte.
In the lawsuit, American accused Skiplagged of tricking consumers into believing they can tap some kind of secret loophole. American said the website poses as an ordinary consumer to buy tickets, and warns its customers not to tip off the airline about the arrangement.
American said Skiplagged, which is based in New York, has never been authorized to resell the airlines tickets.
Skiplaggeds conduct is deceptive and abusive, the airline said in the lawsuit. Skiplagged deceives the public into believing that, even though it has no authority to form and issue a contract on Americans behalf, somehow it can still issue a completely valid ticket. It cannot. Every ticket issued by Skiplagged is at risk of being invalidated.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment left with Skiplagged.
Skiplagged has been sued before.
United Airlines and online travel agency Orbitzaccused Aktarer Zaman, who was in his early 20s when he started Skiplagged around 2014, of touting prohibited forms of travel.
Zaman, whostarted a GoFundMeto pay his legal costs, settled with Orbitz, and the Unitedlawsuit was dismissed.
