If they were that accurate in their seat management then why are airlines constantly overbooking their flights and asking for passengers to volunteer to take another flight?

Plus if a passenger is NOT taking a leg doesn’t that save them fuel? This is like suing a person for using a buy 2 get 1 free deal because they could have sold 3 for full price.

Just to clarify, skiplagged does do things a little differently.

For example: they saved me $300 flying from Japan to SFO because they booked me an additional leg from SFO to SEA. If you searched for the first leg on any aggregator (or the airline’s site), it was available but cost $300 more than booking the 2-flight itinerary to SEA (which would never show up if you searched for flights to SFO).

For what it’s worth, I agree that this form of pricing is absurd and should be illegal. The fact that skiplagged even exists indicates something has gone wrong.

From their view you cost them an upcharge on the initial ticket and then they can boom the seat for ANOTHER up charged direct flight on the second leg. It's complete bullshit that this has become their business model, but it is. Anticonsumer behavior is corporate 101 these days.

So, there is a practical reason why airlines dislike skiplagging. There's a contract of carriage that goes along with every ticket, and it states that the airline has a responsibility to get a traveler from their origin to their destination. If flights get rescheduled and canceled, the airlines will reacommodate you on alternate flights from origin to destination, and are under no obligation to route you through that particular airport.

However, this is mainly a contracting provision and as long as airlines offer flights that get cheaper when you add a connection, they shouldn't be surprised when people take advantage of it. They can ban a traveler when they do it too many times, I suppose, but Skiplagged is doing nothing wrong here.

Remember that airlines are not above gaming the rules for themselves, either. Qatar Airlines is running empty flights in Australia, on purpose, to get around restrictions on foreign airlines flying there. They have a flight to Melbourne, and also a flight to Adelaide with a "stop" in Melbourne -- except they scheduled the Melbourne to Adelaide leg inconveniently, on purpose, to make sure no one would want to connect. The result is two flights to Melbourne, where normally they would only be entitled to one: https://onemileatatime.com/news/qatar-airways-australia-flights/

I don't use skiplagged, but think that if the airlines want to stop people from using it, they should make their fare rules saner.