UKtravelbear

KeaneJohn

LCY8737

Globaliser

If the previous German decision is a reliable guide, the German courts are not so consumer-friendly as to fail to understand the commercial rationale for an Amsterdam-Bangkok ticket being less valuable and therefore cheaper than a London-Bangkok ticket (to hark back to the example I gave above), even though the London-Bangkok sector is flown on the same aircraft in both cases.

But I don't see why lots of media attention on this would be good news for anyone. If you really think that the long-term effect of Lufthansa losing this case would be cheap business class air fares for all, regardless of market, I have a bridge to sell. And if you really think that long-term effect of cheap business class air fares for all is that everyone can enjoy the current levels of business class service at lower fares, I have more of those bridges.

memesweeper

Tafflyer

Globaliser

Nobody is complaining about consumers exploiting pricing differences between markets.

The airlines' complaint is about consumers who buy a cheaper product in one market yet help themselves to the more expensive product in a different market, simply because they're physically able to do it. Is it unfair for an airline to seek to enforce that?Be careful what you wish for.You forget that the value of the non-stop route to point-to-point traffic tends to be increased by the presence of the lower-yield connecting traffic. The reason: frequency; it's the same reason why airlines like BA fill the back of every LHR-JFK with low-yielding traffic instead of just flying three all-J 747s a day.

So, contrary to the implicit assumption in your point, these are not independent market sectors. Because they are inter-dependent, it may be commercially important for the most profitable part of the airline's business for it to carry the connecting traffic too. And I suspect that this is a lesson which BA learned from its own commercial history, more specifically from strategic decisions made during the Ayling era which were later reversed.

NickB

The relevant piece of legislation in consumer contracts in the UK these days would be the Consumer Rights Act 2015 rather than UCTA (although it makes no fundamental difference on the substantive issue). German law and UK law on unfair terms in consumer contracts is very similar since they both give effect to the same underlying piece of EU legislation, namely the Directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts.

Tafflyer

I believe the German court sided with the defendant on the principle you mentioned as this much was clear. Do not automatically assume that if the costs of his actions were in fact known to the consumer, the court would have not found another reason to discharge the case. I believe the absence of clear consumer information allowed a "quick and easy" dismissal of the case and that no more should be read into it at this stage. If Lufthansa is appealing the judgement, they must think they have a good case, since failure would have wide-ranging and very negative effects for pretty much all legacy carriers. Many of us really hope Lufthansa will lose.

srbrenna

Takiteasy

Tafflyer

I completely understand your point of view. However, the sentence I quoted from your post indicates what I believe to be the fundamental difference of opinion here. Along with many others, I do not accept the "2 different products" stance. I believe that it is a cheaper bundle of 2 products. It may be convenient for airlines' revenue management and legal departments to present it as such but from a consumer point of view it simply makes no sense. I believe and hope that when this plays out that the courts will side with the consumer.

And you know, for almost every indirect routing there is a competing direct routing and all airlines try to competitively undercut each other this way.

But then there are also special cases where some airlines or groups of airlines have effective monopolies in certain geographic areas. Take the example of ZRH-MUC. This must be the most exorbitantly expensive sector in Europe. For a mere 162 miles Lufthansa and Swiss, both owned by Lufthansa Group will demand between €253 and €522. There is simply no more competition on that route. Tag on MUC-DUS to that trip, effectively tripling the distance flown, and you find that due to low cost competition on ZRH-DUS, the ZRH-MUC-DUS itinerary is on sale for €159, even using the single sector that would cost €522.

So, if any court affords airlines this sort of protection, then that can only come in tandem with prohibiting it on sectors where a single airline group has a monopoly.

Globaliser

But if you deliberately skip the last sector, you have only put yourself through half the number of connections that you should have done, if you were to honour your part of the bargain.

Takiteasy

Globaliser

That is understandably the point of view that would be espoused by a self-interested passenger.

However, it is clearly not the point of view from which the airline works when it prices and markets these fares. The Amsterdam-Bangkok fare is clearly not being sold as a bundle of two products. If nothing else, this is demonstrated by the fact that (if the fare is being used in the typical way) if either the Amsterdam-London or London-Bangkok flights isn't operating, the airline may re-route you from Amsterdam to Bangkok by some other means, including possibly a non-stop flight. That is because your fare and your contract are to get you from Amsterdam to Bangkok.

Analytically, these are the two positions. But this is not a matter of opinion, and the passenger's belief doesn't really enter into it. The question is whether the airline has a proper reason for operating the system in the way that it does. And we know that when faced with a similar problem, the German courts held that the airline does have a proper reason for doing so: if you buy an A-B-C ticket at a low fare, that's for travel from A-C, not a bundle of two separate products A-B and B-C that the passenger can choose to use in either order.