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Comment by awb | Hacker News Reader

The airline’s position is that it’s a contract. When you buy the ticket you agree in the T&C not to game the system.

The other way to fix it would be to charge every leg at direct flight prices and then offer a rebate for completing your full itinerary.

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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 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.

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.

Here's some info on the hub & spoke system:

https://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/50066526/airline-hub-gu...

And Charlotte in particular:

https://www.wfae.org/local-news/2020-01-14/faq-city-why-do-f...

> 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.

> Wether 90% (or X%) market share qualifies as a monopoly is an age-old debate.

It really isn’t much of a debate

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.

Not that I disagree with you but I've heard of sushi restaurants doing this

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.

All-you-can-eat sushi places do this, to prevent people from peeling the expensive fish off the cheap rice.

I've never heard of a normal pay-per-item one doing it.

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.

Yeah I've seen other buffets do this too. If you have plates of uneaten food they'll surcharge.

Huh. Unless that was advertised as a policy they would have no right to enforce that.

There's a sign on the table or the buffet where I've seen it.

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.

Why would the airlines accept this?

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

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