SKIPLAGGED SOUTHWEST TORRENT

A Dallas Love Field Southwest flight to Chicago O’Hare on December 13 was $20 more on DestinaHolidays than it was on, for example. On the other hand, Southwest flights from Skiplagged via DestinaHolidays are often more expensive than on. It hurts consumers that Southwest’s fares aren’t showing up for comparison or booking purposes in metasearch engines such as Kayak, Google Flights or Skyscanner. On the one hand, I admire little Skiplagged’s audacity in standing up to the airline. Skiplagged didn’t respond to a request to comment about its strategy.Īsked whether Skiplagged is playing with fire when it comes to Southwest, one of the biggest carriers in the U.S., Kayak CEO Steve Hafner said: “They’ve been playing cat and mouse with airlines for years.

SKIPLAGGED SOUTHWEST TORRENT

So Skiplagged, founded by Aktarer Zaman in New York, seems to be staying one step ahead of the airline, which has won multiple lawsuits and issued a torrent of cease and desist letters against startups and other online travel players seeking to offer Southwest flights on their own websites. Efforts to reach DestinaHolidays for comment were unsuccessful. Does DestinaHolidays scrape the Southwest website to access the flights or grab them as part of tour packages? Both methods would presumably be unauthorized. Skiplagged now enables its customers to find Southwest flights on, and then points flyers to DestinaHolidaysto book them. But with a Southwest hometown federal court in Dallas barring Kiwi from scraping Southwest and settlement talks between the airline and Kiwi under way, Skiplagged is still earning money promoting Southwest flights. Skiplagged had been using to access flights from Southwest, which notoriously touts as the only place for leisure travelers to book its tickets. Give flight discounter and hidden-city ticket enabler Skiplagged credit for its resourcefulness when it comes to offering verboten flights from Southwest Airlines, but the nine-year-old startup could be playing a dangerous game.

Skiplagged southwest