Can airlines sue customers for cancelling a flight in Australia?

We recently heard about a case where German airline Lufthansa sued one of its customers for missing a flight. The allegation is the customer was engaging in a practice called ‘hidden city ticketing’ where the person does not intend to continue to the final destination.

What do you think would happen if an airline tried to sue one of its customers in Australia? Answer below and we’ll award BS Busters as part of our Badge Challenge.

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It may help to identify whether similar fare structures exist here domestically, or on international flights.

I gather the assumption is that in the European examples longer flights get some cost advantage where there is a stop over, compared to a regular flight on the shorter journey. Domestically here any flight with a stop over appears to be based on adding the individual standard flight leg costs together, or are consistently more expensive the further you fly.

The one peculiar example that might fit from recollection three years previous were some flights to Uluru. They can be direct from a Capital or Cairns etc. Some occasionally went via Alice Springs. It was often cheaper to fly to Uluru than Alice, hence there may have been an option to have booked to Uluru and walked off the flight at Alice, and saved!

No doubt there would have been a problem shortly afterwards, with the flight about to depart, one passenger short. No checks on anyone disembarking to know where you are! I suspect there might be more than an airline fare evasion issue and other security related costs to consider?

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Not quite. I’ll use some contrived examples. There are anomalies where, for example BNE-SYD-MEL might be cheaper than just SYD-MEL. People would ticket BNE-SYD-MEL and try to board in SYD rather than BNE. The airlines learnt about that and cancel the entire booking if the pax does not start where the ticket originates.

The other variation, the one LH is suing over, would be if SYD-BNE-CNS was cheaper than SYD-BNE so the pax buys the SYD-BNE-CNS ticket, takes only carry ons and gets off at BNE.

These anomalies happen. It is not about distance but about how they fill seats and serve various markets. It rarely if ever makes sense excepting in the airlines bottom line. Sometimes the trigger will be as simple as having competing airline with a more direct route, so to compete a fare is ‘adjusted’ to cover the longer trip time and thus sell tickets.

I hope that made sense. Maybe this will make better sense.

That too.

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I don’t understand why LH, or the hypothetical airline in @PhilT’s example would be put out. After all, the seat is paid for whether the passenger uses it or not. In fact, the absence of the passenger would lighten the load (minus passenger and luggage), and reduce fuel consumption. Therefore the flight would be marginally cheaper for the airline(s) by each passenger who is absent.

In Australia, I don’t think passengers can sue airlines for not carrying them whether by cancelling, or delaying, diverting, etc. Reciprocally, I don’t believe airlines can sue passengers.

I think it’s a flight of fancy. (<= couldn’t resist slipping that in)

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It is because they are thus selling cheaper tickets than they otherwise would. Many of the affected routes include legs that are high demand, so the cheap ticket holders could be filling a plane to the detriment of the airline that wants to sell more expensive tickets for that high demand leg. Any differences in fuel would not balance the financial equation if more than the odd person did it.

The reason it is banned by airlines is that it became quite popular some decades ago and the accountants noticed what was going on :wink:

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They possibly can’t for flights within Australia where a passenger was a no show at the airport. European Airlines operate under different arrangements (European Community Regulations) to that in Australia. It is possible under these regulations that passengers can be responsible for losses incurred by an airline.

In Australia, as the passenger would forfeit the paid fare or have penalties for rebooking of the ticket, this would compensate the airline for any additional costs associated with the cancellation of the ticket. Australian airlines can charge reasonable costs in such case.

If an airline tried to sue for charges above and beyond this, it would not pass the reasonable person’s test and is likely not to go very far in the courts. The Qantas carriage T&Cs, as an example, also don’t specifically indicate any passenger liabilities for no shows.

Could an airline sue a passenger for other things?

Yes, I expect that if a passenger’s actions were negligent or resulted in costs to an airline, airlines possibly could sue for additional costs associated with the carriage.

For example, if a passenger was abusive and disruptive on the fight causing a safety issues to fellow passengers/flight personnel, the flight could be diverted to remove this passenger. In such case it could be seen as being reasonable for an airline could sue for additional costs such as fuel, airport landing charges etc as these costs would not have been reasonably expected to be covered by the airline through its usual operations.

There could be other examples such as where luggage was loaded but the passenger did not show for boarding, resulting in the flight being delayed while the luggage was removed from the aircraft. The delay could result in penalties by the airport and/or compensation of other passengers who may miss connecting flights as a result of the passenger induced delay. Again, these costs would not have been incurred but did as a direct result of a passenger. Maybe compensation should be sought from the passenger in such cases.

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The LH lawsuit has been getting exposure. The Guardian’s article is a good overview.

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The one bit of confusing information here is the flight.

The original booking was from Oslo to Seattle return, via Frankfurt each way.

The passenger actually flew to Seattle!
On getting nearly all the way back to Oslo, at Frankfurt the passenger chose not to continue the journey, the last little bit to Oslo!

Is it actually cheaper to fly all the way from Oslo to Seattle and back to Frankfurt than it is to fly on a single direct Oslo Frankfurt ticket?

The Guardian says the passenger subsequently purchased a Frankfurt Berlin ticket. It still makes little sense if the goal was to fly from Oslo direct to Berlin.

Is the answer here that the passenger originally intended to fly to Seattle. Having been to Seattle the next destination was genuinely Berlin.

On international flights there can be substantial savings on a return flight compared with separate destinations. Hence a ticket Oslo to Seattle plus a separate ticket Seattle to Berlin is being compAred with the original Oslo to Seattle return ticket.

Aside from the time saving how much did the traveller save in costs by simply not staying on the flight back to Oslo? The difference or saving is a Frankfurt to Berlin airfare vs Oslo to Berlin. True, Oslo is further.

I have yet to find a current example (casually testing a few likely flight choices with Qantas) of where this strategy may provide a benefit for domestic Australian travel. The milk run flights (same flight number all the way) I am most familiar with rarely offer specials. They make the money out of filling the hops. Where they fly in Qld or NSW it is always much lower cost to fly to the end destination direct on a big jet than the slow way.

In looking at multi leg flights where the flight flight number changes, I can’t recall ever finding special deals where it was cheaper to fly to a regional centre via a Capital than to the Capital direct on the same day at about the same time.

Literally @BrendanMays, the headline proposition is about an Australian passenger being sued because they cancel a flight. I’ve cancelled a number of flights, one very recently. It was not a problem. No risk of being sued. Just a loss of fare and no claim on travel insurance because the reasonable causes are all excluded!

To align with the European example, the real question may be, ‘ can an airline sue a passenger on an Australian domestic flight for failing to board and not continuing on a latter leg after commencing a journey, when travelling with only carry on?’

The European example appears to be more complex than a simple two leg example. It is also an international flight example. If I had a need to fly from Cairns to Melbourne for a long weekend, then be in Brisbane for Tuesday for work.

Would it be possible to purchase a weekend special which changes flights in Brisbane, cheaper than the alternate two flight booking, or multi leg booking?

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I read that too and found it a bit hard to believe.

Reading between the lines, it think was the case…Buying a return from Oslo to Seattle (through Frankfurt) and taking a separate flight from Frankfurt Berlin may have been cheaper or quicker than than either Oslo to Seattle to Oslo thence Berlin.

I suspect the passenger (well it would have been automatically done by the airline) had checked in luggage and it was most likely to have been checked from Seattle to Oslo… and not Seattle to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt to Oslo. Most multileg tickets check right through even when airlines may be switched mid route. The only time we have experienced this not being the case is when one is forced to go through immigration and customs (such as an international flight arriving and then next leg being a domestic flight).

He would have been a no show at the boarding gate at Frankfurt which meant the baggage would have been removed from the plane after loading…potentially resulting in costs to the airline (penalties from the airport for missing departure slot). I suspect this is the €2000 the airline is trying to recoup from the passenger.

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