simons1

etiene

Perhaps we can express the issue in an airline agnostic way:

Two parties have entered contract for a service. The purchaser had the option of two services, one of which was higher priced - the purchaser opted for the lower priced service.

The vendor stands ready to render the service to the purchaser, but the purchaser is choosing to avail themselves of the higher priced service without recourse. The vendor is claiming the right to charge the higher price for the service actually provided.

The fact that the lower priced service entirely contains the higher priced service - and is thus something that the purchaser can unilaterally avail themselves of - is somewhat peculiar to the airline business [hence the plethora of analogies], but is not relevant.

Jagboi

The airline would have to prove actual loss, not hypothetical loss. Simply offering tickets for sale at a high price and having them unsold is not actual loss, the airline would have to prove that they turned away customers willing to pay Ł4,000 for the direct flight.

However, the airlines own pricing structure defeats that argument, since if there was an excess of customers willing to pay Ł4,000 for A-B, then they would never offer A-B-C for Ł2,000, they would offer it for the price of Ł4,000 for A-B, plus the segment cost of B-C, since they can sell all the A-B seats they can. Clearly they can't though, or there would be no reason for the multi segement flights to be cheaper

Inflexible tickets that have no value if a customer misses a flight/ connection also work against they argument of the airline suffering a loss, as if the customer misses a flight on a non changeable ticket the airline has been paid for a service it is not required to perform. That allows the practice of overbooking to further maximise revenue, which would otherwise be impossible.

Pretty much any way you looks at it, legacy airline pricing is stacked against the consumer, I'm actually surprised that LH would want some of these things tested in court, they might get a result they are quite unhappy with.

percysmith

You're right from a strict contract legal point of view.

However I hope governments consider the broader competition law aspects to allow this to stand.

strichener

Which is to completely ignore airline pricing and how revenue management change availability based on real or perceived demand. The reality is that the Ł3000 fare that you have should have purchased may just be Ł2000 in two weeks.

Ancient Observer

I think simons1 has the correct answer.
Anything else is informed/uninformed speculation.

Jagboi

I think it is relevant, as I can't think of anything else outside of air transport ( and I think the UK trains are also an anomaly in worldwide rail travel pricing) that getting a greater amount of service costs less than a lesser amount of service. If I hire a yard service to mow my grass, it costs more if I have a bigger yard over a small yard. If the crew shows up and mows my front grass and I tell them not to bother with the back (even though I have paid for the back to be mowed), they are not going to send me a bill for not mowing the back yard. The very idea is laughable.

Bear96

What legal system is this?

If I am a grocer and someone pays me only for an apple but walks out of my store with a cut of beef instead, I have no recourse unless I can prove a future customer who wanted an apple was turned away because I was all out of apples?

etiene

Where's the competition issue with the pricing...? Long-haul per sector pricing - in the guise of the LCCs like Norwegian - hasn't really taken off [pun inevitable]. You might argue that is because they do not benefit from full hub-and-spoke networks - but I would contend that if service pricing is what allows the hub and spoke.

Granted, it is an industry with a phenomenally high barrier to entry - and I would not argue that it needs to be less regulated - but I don't see the issue here.

etiene

If they chose to price their service such that the service used was more costly than the service purchased they would be entirely within their rights to do so.

You are consuming the convenient service while paying for the inconvenient one - then arguing entirely without taking convenience into account. It is up to you how you value that convenience - but you cannot argue that it has zero value or you would be taking the last leg!

alexwuk

As my post said, BA's CoC limits their remedies in that circumstance to refusing your further use of your ticket.

Again, this is legally not correct. The airline have offered a specific series of flights for a given price. The fact that they would offer a smaller subset of these flights for a higher price doesn't affect the contract you enter with them. The argument being run by some posters is that by not taking all of the flights you are buying, you are in breach of your contract - which is function in fact (and in law) of what each carriers' CoC says.

to be carrier specific: BA's contract conditions (the CoC) do not impose a contractual requirement to fly all the flights on the ticket and do not impose a right of claim for BA on the passenger should all the flights not be flown. BA merely require being told that you're not going to fly the remaining segments, at which point BA can request you pay them the fare difference; should you decline that fare difference request, then BA reserve the right to deny boarding of the remaining flights on the ticket.

Now, there's the question many here are asking which is: if a hypothetical CoC did impose such a contractual requirement to fly every leg (again, BA's does not): what is the calculation of loss to the airline for a breach of this contractual requirement?

Given airlines operate a Monopolistic pricing model which can be summarised as:
$2 for a bag of two apples
*or*
$1 for a bag of four apples - as long as you agree to eat all four

I doubt there are many examples of case law for what the vendor's loss is for a failure to eat all four apples?

The problem for the vendor is: it is easy for the buyer to demonstrate that it's cheaper for the vendor to provide two (or three) apples rather than four apples, and as such if you only consume three apples, the vendor's actual, realized costs are lower, not higher. The vendor's loss argument would have be a tort claim from consequential loss/opportunity foregone, but frankly I'd fancy my chances much more as consumer than vendor in front a UK judge on this one.

alexwuk

.....

Globaliser

Nope, that's tort again.

KARFA

no it doesn't. read the whole of the terms.

FlyerTalker39574