American Airlines sued hidden-city consolidator Skiplagged for misappropriation of its trademark. The trial has just begun, with Skipplagged CEO Aktarer Zaman taking the stand and asserting his company did nothing wrong against American Airlines.
Trial Day One: American Airlines Sues Skiplagged
Skiplagged is a website that specializes in helping passengers find hidden city ticketing. Skiplagging is a term that has become synonymous for hidden city ticketing or throw-away ticketing, the idea that A-B-C is cheaper than A-B because carriers charge a premium for nonstop pricing, so you book A-B-C, walk away at B, and pocket the savings. Full example with pictorial illusions here. It’s risky too…you cannot check bags when Skiplagging and if you skip one segment all remaining segments on the itinerary will be canceled.
Zaman admitted (per The Dallas Morning News) that Skiplagged:
- used American Airlines’ trademarked logos for years without permission
- directed passengers to the airline’s site to purchase tickets even though Skiplagged is not an authorized ticketing agent for American Airlines
- warned its customers not to mention that they were buying their tickets through Skiplagged
That’s an interesting way to characterize it considering 1.) there is a huge difference between directing passengers to AA.com and actually issuing tickets without permission (more on that below) and 2.) so what if it warned its users not to mention they were buying their tickets through Skiplagged?
But Zaman also insisted, “I believe to this day that our use of the logos is fine.” (Skiplagged stopped using the AA logos after a cease and desist from American Airlines ahead of its lawsuit).
American contends that Skiplagged’s marketing practices violate the airline’s ticketing policies, put buyers who book flights through Skiplagged at risk of having their tickets invalidated, infringe on American’s trademarks and, because of hidden fees, fraudulently promise customers lower fares than they end up paying.
Skiplagged’s theory of the case is that AA waited eight years to sue, suggesting it had no trouble with what Skiplagged was doing. Furthermore, all Skiplagged does is bring incremental revenue to AA it would not have otherwise had:
“For eight years, they sat on the sidelines. They did nothing and said nothing…Skiplagged’s use of American’s trademarks led to additional sales of American flights for which American benefitted.”
Zaman was asked if he told Skiplagged users to lie and responded, “I can see how this could come across as potentially telling them to lie,” and yet he explained that his intention was simply to point out the risks of purchasing such tickets and asked each user to evaluate the risk themselves.
I believe that Skiplagged provides a valuable service but am not well-versed enough in trademark law to comment specifically on its (mis)use of the AA logo. But the way in which Skiplagged, at one point, forced users to buy hidden city tickets through its website (rather than deep linking to AA) was deeply problematic, even if it did adequately disclose the risk of doing so. But one thing is certain: violating a contract of carriage is very different than violating the law. AA is seeking to merge the two, but they are two very different things.
This will be a very interesting case to watch.
> Read More: American Airlines Sues Skiplagged (And Has A Strong Case)
Any predictions on how it turns out?
Sneaky lawyers will sneakily work out a deal .
Easy solution for airlines :
Anyone playing this sneak ought to have their bags checked through to the ticketing destination , with no carry-on allowed .
how would you know who is planning to do this?….
Easy . When the gate agent asks them to gate-check their bag , and they go totally ape . That’s when you know .
Except AA is NOTORIOUS for forcing folks to gate check even though there’s plenty of overhead space left.
Like that silly CRJ-900 aircraft…
And what about those of us who sometimes travel with no baggage whatsoever (unless you want to count the clothes on our body to be baggage)?
One of the pleasures of having clothes and other stuff spread out and stored at various destinations that are on the commuting routes is that there is often even little to no hand baggage on many of the trips.
“Zaman admitted that Skiplagged… directed passengers to the airline’s site to purchase tickets even though Skiplagged is not an authorized ticketing agent for American Airlines”
That seems like some murky waters to go into that could backfire now that the argument has been introduced. When some AA people get on the stand, I’d be asking variations of “Is it AA’s position that people should never direct others to book at aa.com unless they are an authorized ticketing agent?”
Wikipedia is a massive thief of logos, too. They use them without permission routinely.
I don’t know why the airlines bother fighting Skiplagged. A minuscule number of passengers use it, and the additional revenue they get probably offsets the lower fares of people who would have booked with the carrier otherwise. It makes the carriers look like they don’t like their customers. Generally, in America at least, getting a good deal is considered commendable. Who doesn’t respect a good deal?. Surely AA has better things to do than throw its resources at this website that wins in court time and time again.
I stand with Skiplagged. But skiplagged users need to beware that there are risks with throw-away ticketing.
I hope governments get on board with banning travel service providers’ restrictions on throwaway tickets/segments.
More proof that the worst airline in the world isn’t in the transportation business but sales and marketing of hopes and dreams. How often do you think the CEO finds out that the flight from Paris to DFW today is five hours late? How often do you think he knows the sales side of their website has been down 30 minutes?