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American Airlines Is Suing Company Skiplagged Over Viral Travel Hack

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American Airlines is heading to court over travelers using a viral “travel hack” to save some money. The hack and company is known as Skiplagged or skiplagging, and refers to when passengers book flights that have a layover in their desired final destination, so instead of staying on the flight for the entire trip, they leave during the layover. 

For example, last year American Airlines accused a teenager who was flying from Gainesville, Florida, to New York City with a layover in Charlotte of skiplagging and intending to depart the trip once the flight reached its layover in Charlotte. 

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A few weeks after American Airlines filed a lawsuit against the company Skiplagged, which has been the main power promoting the trendy “hack.”

According to Andrea Guzmán, a Texas Brands Reporter for Chron, “American Airlines is accusing Skiplagged of consumer fraud, breaching American’s use agreement, infringing on the company’s use of logos and marks, and ultimately costing consumers more than if they booked through American. The accusations are part of a multimillion-dollar trademark violation lawsuit.

American Airlines is not the first major airline to go up against Skiplagged. United Airlines and Orbitz both sued Skiplagged 10 years ago. Skiplagged CEO Aktarer Zaman settled with Orbitz while a Chicago judge dismissed United’s case. 

Zaman told CNN, “I’m just providing people with information and making them more informed. I never saw that as a bad thing, making people more skilled travelers.”

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“Our flights are so cheap, United sued us… but we won,” Skiplagged writes on its website. 

“The company maintains that the practice is perfectly legal, but leaves a few notes to interested passengers, noting that they’ll only want to take a backpack or bag that won’t get checked and sent to the final destination and to not associate an airline’s frequent flier account with the flight so the airline doesn’t invalidate accrued miles.” Guzmán wrote. 

Skiplagged does warn its users not to take on the practice too often as airlines will likely get upset. For example, the teen with the layover in Charlotte was banned from American Airlines for three years and then made him buy a direct ticket.

Airline ticket pricing has jumped upwards of 25% last year. Many travelers in the US are upset with the pricing styles airlines use and increasing prices. 

Dallas Morning News reported, “Zaman took the stand on Monday and said he believes the company’s use of American’s logos is fine. Still, Skiplagged noticeably no longer has American’s blue and red flight symbol on its search page, displaying only a gray wing instead.”

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Global Cyber Outage Grounds Multiple International Flights 

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A cyber update recently impacted computer systems internationally, causing flights all over the world to ground while broadcasters were taken off air and banking and healthcare services were affected. 

“An update to a product offered by global cyberscurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O), appeared to be the trigger, affecting customers using Microsoft’s (MSFT.O)Windows Operating System. Microsoft said later on Friday the issue had been fixed,” wrote Reuters.

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CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz stated on social media that the company was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts and that a fix was being deployed. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”

American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines grounded flights early on Friday as well as other international airports around the world, which also reported delays and disruptions. 

Banks and financial service companies in Australia, Germany, India, and beyond sent warnings to their customers regarding disruptions and issues relating to executing transactions. 

“We are having the mother of all global market outages,” one trader said according to Reuters. 

“Microsoft’s cloud unit Azure said it was aware of the issue that impacted virtual machines running Windows OS and the CrowdStrike Falcon agent getting stuck in a ‘restarting state,’ amid an ongoing global outage,” the publication wrote. 

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“We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

CrowdStrike said in an alert its “‘Falcon Sensor’ software was causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen.”

“Over half of Fortune 500 companies used CrowdStrike software,” the U.S. firm said.

“This is a very, very uncomfortable illustration of the fragility of the world’s core Internet infrastructure,” said Ciaran Martin, Professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former head of the UK National Cyber Security Centre.

Some international airports in Singapore, Hong Kong, and India had to check in passengers manually over the cyber outage. 

While companies have been restoring their services, many analysts in different branches are calling this potentially one of the biggest cyber outages in the history of the industry and economy. 

“IT security tools are all designed to ensure that companies can continue to operate in the worst-case scenario of a data breach, so to be the root cause of a global IT outage is an unmitigated disaster,” said Ajay Unni, CEO of one of Australia’s largest cybersecurity services companies, StickmanCyber.

Remembering Bette Nash, The World’s Longest-Serving Flight Attendant 

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Bette Nash has become an icon in the world of air travel. She holds the Guinness World Record for being the longest-serving flight attendant in the world. She unfortunately recently passed away at the age of 88, but her legacy will live on among her peers, and in the world of aviation.

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American Airlines Suing Travel Company For ‘Bait And Switch’ Sales Tactic

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American Airlines is suing Skiplagged, a travel company, claiming that they’re deceiving customers with a “bait and switch” tactic on ticket pricing.

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New Study Reveals the Most Annoying Passengers on Flights

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According to a study from The Vacationer, American travelers find fellow passengers who kick the seats in front of them or display drunken or disruptive behavior as the most annoying.

The Airplane Etiquette Violations Survey polled 1,098 Americans over the age of 18 and asked them to choose which common behaviors by co-passengers they found most irritating. The survey takers could choose as many or as few options as they wanted.

Seat kickers and drunken, unruly passengers were at the top of the list, with 59.11% of respondents checking them off.

“The 59.11% of American adults that selected each represent more than 152 million people according to the recent census. So, the next time you fly, you may want to reconsider your foot placement inflight and how many alcoholic drinks you consume.”

Passengers who smell too bad from bad hygiene or too good from strong perfume or cologne came in second, with 48% of respondents disliking these co-passengers.

Passengers who do not pay attention to their children’s behavior earned the third spot at 46.81% of respondents choosing it.

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Some of the other top 10 offenders were passengers who eat food with pungent smells (39.8%), passengers who hog the armrest (39.07%), passengers who recline their seats all the way (38.25%), passengers who talk too much (29.87%), passengers who board or deplane out of turn (29.6%), and passengers who have their headphones turned up too loud (28.96%).

Some other annoyances that did not make the top 10 list included passengers who take off their shoes, passengers who flirt with other travelers and flight attendants, passengers who use overhead space meant for other rows, and passengers who practice excessive PDA.

Passengers who requested too much from flight attendants were at the bottom of the list, cited by only 13.02% of respondents.

According to Federal Aviation Administration data, there were 5,981 reports of unruly passengers in 2021, making it the worst year on record. Nearly 4,290 of those cases were mask related.

In a statement issued last November, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed U.S. attorneys to “prioritize prosecution of federal crimes occurring on commercial aircraft that endanger the safety of passengers, flight crews and flight attendants.”

“Passengers who assault, intimidate or threaten violence against flight crews and flight attendants do more than harm those employees; they prevent the performance of critical duties that help ensure safe air travel. Similarly, when passengers commit violent acts against other passengers in the close confines of a commercial aircraft, the conduct endangers everyone aboard.”

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Several bizarre headlines have sprung out of these altercations. In an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., earlier this year, a man attempted to open the plane door after an argument with a flight attendant. The flight attendant managed to subdue the man, hitting him in the head with a coffee pot.

In the survey, some people checked off none of the options. The Vacationer found that 11.57% of respondents had no issues with any behaviors.

“Nearly 12% of American adults said that none of these 16 onboard flight behaviors annoyed them. The 11.57% that said this represents nearly 30 million people. Nearly 30 million people say they are not annoyed by sitting next to disruptive drunks, having their seat kicked or someone smelling. In addition, they have no problem with inattentive parents, loud music, talkative people, and more. These people must be saints, and we need to cherish their patience. They put the 88.43% of the rest of us who get annoyed to shame.”

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Lost Luggage Seeing A Surge During Summer Travel Months

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Think of all the frustrations that could occur at the airport. Check-ins. Delays. Cancellations. All are sure to give you headaches, but perhaps the worst possible scenario is arriving at your destination, only to find that your luggage is nowhere to be seen.

Not only does lost luggage turn countless valuable hours into a full-on manhunt, but in the event that baggage isn’t found, money will have to be spent on clothes and other necessities. And unfortunately, that’s becoming more of a possibility than ever.

According to data by the Department of Transportation, almost 220,000 bags were “mishandled” — either lost, damaged, delayed, or stolen — by airlines in April. That’s 0.55 mishandlings per 100 bags enplaned.

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American Airlines Network led the way in mishandling with nearly 65,000 (0.72 per 100), while Alaska Airlines Network came in second with almost 16,000. Those 220,000 mishandlings are up from around 93,000 in April of 2021.

The crisis of lost luggage could be seen as the result of a number of factors. For one, travel has seen rapid increases since the reduction of COVID-19 protocols. On July 20, 2.2 million passengers were screened by the Transportation Security Administration, up from 1.9 million a year ago.

Airline and airport staffing is also lacking. Those shortages have resulted in putting the industry on track for the most cancellations in a non-pandemic year, and have an equally frustrating impact on baggage handling.

“When you hit a rough patch in your operations, the bags are going to be affected probably even more so than customers,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said, whose airline sent a whole plane to retrieve 1,000 stranded bags at London’s Heathrow Airport last week. It’s a problem some travel analysts expect to carry into 2023.

If you find yourself in this situation, there are a number of actions to take. The first should be to immediately go to the baggage claim office, as some airlines have a certain number of hours you must file a claim within.

One of the most important tips to remember is that airlines are required to compensate you for the bag’s content: domestic flights have a maximum of $3,800 in compensation, while international flights are $1,800. Bag check fees are also refunded.

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“The financial compensation is helpful, because that’s not money you’d have spent ordinarily,” NerdWallet travel expert Sara Rathner told MSNBC. However, you won’t receive the money immediately. Airlines have different timelines for when they deem a bag lost, with some taking up to two weeks.

Traveling light by simply bringing a carry-on is also an excellent strategy, though one that might only work for a brief trip instead of a longer excursion. In the event you do check your bag, make sure to pack an additional set or three of clothes in your carry-on.

If your luggage gets lost and isn’t eventually found, you’ll at least have outfits to carry you over for a bit until you can replenish your wardrobe. The same applies to medicine and toiletries that might be critical to your health and hygiene.

Additionally, ensure that nothing of value, like electronics or jewelry, is placed into your checked bag as airlines are unlikely to cover the costs.

Flights Cancelled

Airlines Set To Cancel Thousands Of Flights Due To Staffing Shortage

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Unless you happen to have a Boeing in your backyard and a pilot’s license in your pocket, you may be in trouble of missing out on a flight to your next vacation destination. Across the country, airlines are cutting thousands of flights ahead of the summer travel season due to pilot shortages.

No airline has suffered more than Southwest, which has cut around 20,000 flights from June to Labor Day. It’s also pushed up its yearly hiring goal by 2,000 to 10,000. Meanwhile, Delta Airlines stated it was cancelling 100 daily flights from July 1 to Aug. 7 in the U.S. and Latin America, with 517 total flights canceled in June and 700 cut over Memorial Day weekend.

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Similarly, American Airlines is also affected, with CEO Robert Isom confirming the airline had to ground 100 regional flights due to the shortage. “There is a supply and demand imbalance right now, and it really is within the regional carrier ranks,” Isom stated at an investor’s conference.

“We have probably a hundred aircraft — almost a hundred aircraft that aren’t, aren’t productive right now, that aren’t flying.”

Ironically, “reliability” was Isom’s biggest priority when he took the helm of American back on March 31. “People really need to feel like they have control of their itineraries and we give them control by making sure they get to where they want to go on time,” he said at the time. “I just can’t be any more blunt about it than that.”

The shortage has become so prevalent that some airlines are cutting down on the number of requirements potential pilots have to go through in order to fly. Delta previously announced in January it would end its requirement for pilots to have four-year degrees, while Republic Airways asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to hire pilots from its LIFT academy when they reach 750 flight hours instead of the required 1,500.

“Republic is not proposing overturning the 1500-hour rule or weakening safety; to the contrary, we are proposing a more intensive, mission-specific training pathway similar to what is permitted for military pilots under current law,” Republic CEO Bryan Bedford told Business Insider.

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Reports also suggested that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC.) could propose a legislation that would raise the retirement age for commercial airline pilots from 65 to 67, a fix that could help to maintain the current workforce number over the short-term, however low it may be.

It’s not just U.S. airlines that are suffering, either. Germany’s flag carrier, Lufthansa — the second-largest airliner in Europe — and its subsidiary Eurowings announced they were scrapping 1,000 flights in July, while airlines like Irish’s Ryanair, Switzerland’s easyJet, and Spain’s Volotea are seeing strikes.

It’s certainly a problem that doesn’t have an easy and quick solution, and one that might not be ending anytime soon. Back in March, Republic CFO Joseph Allman forecasted the shortage reaching its worst in the second and third quarters of 2023, expecting the industry to be short 8,000 pilots next year.

Unfortunately for travelers, turning to road trips instead of dealing with flight uncertainty may not be a slam dunk either after the national gas price rose above $5 on Thursday. In California, drivers are facing prices up to an agonizing $6.40 per gallon.

Boeing 737 Max Returns To US Skies With First Commercial Flights After Crashes

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American Airlines announced last week that they were set to operate the first US commercial flight of Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft’s since the two deadly crashes that occurred in 2019, prompting a worldwide grounding of all Boeing 737 Max’s in March of the same year. 

The flight at this point has already departed, and was scheduled as American Airlines Flight 718, which departed from Miami International Airport at 10:30 a.m. ET for New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Fort Worth is the Texas-based carrier of the aircraft’s that will be operating daily round-trip flights between Miami and New York, and then will begin increasing services to other cities in the coming weeks of the new year. 

United Airlines plans to begin flights using the 737 Max’s on February 11th out of its Denver and Houston hubs. Southwest Airlines agreed to begin flying the planes in the second quarter of 2021. Gol is a Brazilian carrier of strictly Boeing 737 Max planes that actually performed the first relaunch of the jets earlier this month. 

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The planes in general are much more fuel-efficient when compared to traditional commercial planes, which makes them central to a lot of airlines plans around the world. More than 3,000 of the jets are currently on order internationally. 

When all Boeing 737 Max jets were forced to ground in March of 2019, it was quickly recognized as the largest grounding in US history. The Federal Aviation Administration just recently cleared the 737 Max for commercial flight again after Boeing made several safety-related changes to the aircraft. 

Lion Air flight 610 in Indonesia in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Ethiopia in March 2019 were the two flights that resulted in deadly crashes. Pilots on both flights claimed to have battled an automated flight-control system that was incorrectly activated somehow. All 346 individuals on both flights were killed.

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Changes made to the jets include “making the flight-control system less aggressive, providing more redundancy and implementing more robust pilot training that includes time in a flight simulator,” according to news reports. Investigations into both crashes found that there were a multitude of problems with each plane’s development, design, and certification by US regulators.

American Airlines and other carriers of the jets have said that if customers booked a flight on the 737 Max without knowing and didn’t feel comfortable flying on that model, they could switch their flight for free. FAA Administrator Steve Dickson spoke with the media last month, claiming he is “100% confident in the jets and a repeat of the scenarios that led to the two crashes is impossible.”

“In a way, the best thing for the 737 Max has been that it is has taken them 20 months to get the planes ready to going back into service and for almost a year we have had news of the coronavirus that has consumed more attention related to travel than the 737 Max,” said Henry Harteveldt, a former airline executive and president of Atmosphere Research Group, a travel consulting firm.

American Airlines has ordered 76 of the planes and originally had 24 in its fleet when the original grounding occurred in 2019, proving their confidence in the jets as well.

Delta Airline on Screen

Delta Among Airlines Adding Passengers Who Refuse To Wear Masks To No-Fly List

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Travelling anywhere during the coronavirus pandemic poses a certain level of risk, but getting on a plane especially is cause for taking as many precautions as possible. Many airlines have begun implementing mandatory health and safety procedures such as social distancing markers within all airports, requiring facial coverings at all times, and removing middle seat options from being purchased.

For the most part, major airlines throughout the US are taking these procedures seriously and mandating them within all locations. Delta, specifically, wants their customers to understand how important these policies are, and have gone so far as to place people on the no-fly list for refusing to wear a mask while on board. 

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Delta CEO Ed Bastian recently spoke with the media about the company’s mask policy, claiming that while some consumers may think being added to the no-fly list is “excessive,” they believe health and safety is number one priority always. 

“We’ve been… steadily and rather aggressively stepping up our enforcement of the mask policy. If you board the plane and you insist on not wearing your mask, we will insist that you don’t fly Delta into the future.”

The airline has had this policy implemented since the beginning of this pandemic, however, they only recently began seriously enforcing it as a part of their “Clearance-to-Fly” program. This program requires all passengers who claim to have medical conditions that exempt them from wearing a mask to go through a lengthy process to get pre-approval, however, the airline more so suggests that if you are one of these individuals, to stay home and not get on any sort of plane. 

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Delta began blocking out middle seat ticket listings to restrict airplane capacity in May, and is planning on continuing this until at least the end of September, however, it’s more dependent on how much worse the pandemic gets within the next two months. Bastian claims that all planes are also consistently sanitized between flights and layovers. 

“I know there’s a lot of anxiety in the general public — and even for road warriors who have been out flying for years — their first time back, there’s a level of angst that they need almost be walked through the process.”

Bastian claims that while he’s ready for traditional airline travel to resume, he knows that a vaccine is the only thing that will make everyone feel comfortable getting on a plane again, as he feels the same way. “We need some medical confidence back in consumers and continue to restore confidence in air travel.”

Southwest Airlines is one of the more recent companies to require all passengers wear a mask with no exceptions; regardless of any medical conditions that may prevent someone from wearing one. They claim if you have an illness severe enough to hinder your ability to wear a mask, you shouldn’t be getting on a plane in the middle of a global health crisis in general. 

American and United airlines also claimed that they would temporarily ban passengers from flying on their planes if they refuse to wear a mask on board like Delta.