During the coronavirus pandemic, one would assume that air travel is very inexpensive; I've seen plenty of pictures on social media showing people flying on airplanes or that person is the only passenger on the flight. And yes, many flights were cheap for 2 weeks since the whole country shut down, which made me wonder how airlines can stay in business: it's really worse for them than the restaurants and barbershops and many small businesses. Not only are the airlines not getting any demand and customers canceling all of their flights, but they also have to keep flying the scheduled flights even without any passengers, for fear of losing out on those flight plans in the future which they fought for (apparently it's pretty competitive within the airline industry to get the most coveted L.A.- New York flight or similarly frequently made flights, so airlines don't want to lose them). So they still have to pay all the overhead costs on top of the money they lose out on from not having customers. It's like if a restaurant was forced to close down but they still had to produce all the food and pay for all the ingredients. Perhaps that's why airline stocks are down more than any other industry... DAL (Delta), LUV (Southwest), and SAVE (Spirit Air) are all about 1/3 or 40% of what their stock price was 2 months ago, while Boeing (BA) is also taking a residual hit. And this is even with the 10% move up by the overall stock market this past (shortened week due to Good Friday) on the possibility of the coronavirus peaking as well as the Fed injecting more money into the economy.
But anyway, hidden city ticketing is going beyond just entering your origin city and destination city into Google Flights and looking at the options, it's entering a different city that you have no intention of going to and have a layover at the city that you actually want to go to, then not getting on the 2nd leg of your flight. These flights can be cheaper for some reason, and substantially cheaper. For example, I am trying to fly back to Durham from Los Angeles next weekend (to see lovely MJ!) but all flights to Durham (even one-stop flights) are more than $200. The next closest city, Charlotte (The Queen City!) demands more than $300. However, flights to Washington DC are actually pretty cheap, starting from $72, and one flight from American Airlines is just $78, stops at CLT, then goes to DC. So instead of getting on a flight to Charlotte for $300, I can just take the Washington DC flight, get off at Charlotte, and just walk out. Easy, right? The airlines definitely do not want you to do this, and apparently have taken significant measures to stop people from doing this, despite the pretty common sense logic of, "why do I have to take the last leg of a flight if I don't want to?" It's like paying for a whole pizza, eating half of it, and then throwing the rest out. The pizza shop is not going to have a problem with it, but airlines do; it's all in the wacky world of airline pricing, with complex algorithms and the intricate science of milking as much money out of customers as possible. Airlines apparently monitor this type of hidden city ticketing behavior in customers very closely. I wouldn't have known this was being cracked down on! In fact, I think I've unintentionally done this once, flying to Portland and stopping at SFO, I decided I wasn't feeling great about my trip, felt like getting some clams at Fisherman's Wharf and just got out of the airport, spent the rest of the weekend in San Francisco. Ah, the joys of traveling alone and doing things spontaneously without having to book fancy hotels! (See previous article about traveling alone). But nothing happened to me as far as know; I apparently got off the hook. And it wasn't like I got away with murder; I didn't feel guilty at all at the time, and I still don't now, except for not wanting to damage my frequent flyer miles with whichever airline I'm flying with.
So yea, it's a risky maneuver, this hidden city ticketing, but as with the stock market, can be risky but lucrative.....a decrease in price from $300 to $78 is no joke.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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