United Airlines wants to clip the wings of a 22-year-old Manhattan computer whiz who found a loophole that saves travelers big bucks on airfare.
Aktarer Zaman founded Skiplagged.com, which finds cheap flights by using “hidden city” ticketing, in which travelers purposely buy tickets with layovers for a lower fare, using the layover city as their intended destination, and never go on to the itinerary’s final destination. He started the site last year.
United Airlines joined discount travel website Orbitz last moth to file a lawsuit in Chicago federal court against Zaman, calling his site “unfair competition” and accusing it of promoting “strictly prohibited” travel.
Among the companies’ complaints is that the final destination bypass leaves the airlines unable to accurately count passengers, which could lead to departure delays and affect fuel load calculations, Bloomberg reported.
They are seeking $75,000 in lost revenue from the entrepreneur.
Zaman maintains there’s nothing illegal about Skiplagged.com, which he argues helps people expose an “inefficiency” in airline pricing that has existed for decades. He also said he has not profited from the site.
“[Hidden city ticketing] has been around for a while, it just hasn’t been very accessible to consumers,” he said.
The ticketing loophole strategy works only for a one-way flight with no checked bags.
The Bangladesh-born Zaman graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute when he was 20. He works at a tech start-up that he declined to name.
Michael Boyd, president of Boyd Group International, an aviation consulting firm in Colorado, said frequent fliers are aware of “hidden city” ticketing.
“I don’t think it’s illegal what he’s doing,” said Boyd, adding that he was trained as an American Airlines ticket agent to help travelers find “hidden city” fares.
“If [Skiplagged is] shut down, undoubtedly there will be other people to come along to scrape fares and make them available,” said Robert Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co., an airline consulting firm in Port Washington, N.Y.
Source: nypost.com
