Hidden City Tickets is the name given to a practice of booking the connecting flight tickets and then alighting from the airline at the stopover destination,before reaching the final destination. You must be wondering why is this practice wrong and after all it is passengers’ right to deplane even before it reaches its destination. In this respect, two points are noteworthy. One, there might be a cheaper fare for a connecting flight than the direct flight which might prompt one to book a connecting flight instead of a one-way trip. Secondly, there are concerns of public safety and delay of departure which might create logistical problems.
Hidden City ticketing is different from the Opaque Tickets, which is another form of a ticketing practice which is forbidden by the airlines and their governing bodies. In case of opaque ticketing, the travel agents publish the lowest airfare to clear their inventories but do not inform the passengers about the airline on which they would be travelling till the last minute of booking.
Both of these practices are rued by the airlines and cause friction between the carriers and the travel agencies.
Recently, hidden city ticketing method was resorted to by Skiplagged.com which was sued by the United Airways and Orbitz.
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