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American Airlines is suing a travel website that sells tickets that let people save money by exploiting a quirk in airline pricing. American sued Skiplagged Inc. in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, this week, accusing the website of deception. It threatened to cancel every ticket that Skiplagged has sold. In a practice called skiplagging and hidden-city ticketing, travelers book a flight that includes at least one stop, but they leave the plane during a layover. Generally skiplagging is not illegal, but airlines claim that it violates their policies. Last month, American booted a 17-year-old from a flight and banned him for three years when he tried to use the tactic to fly from Gainesville, Florida, to Charlotte, North Carolina, on a ticket that listed New York City as his destination. For the teen, that was cheaper than booking a flight directly to Charlotte. In the lawsuit, American accused Skiplagged of tricking consumers into believing they can tap “some kind of secret ‘loophole.’” American said the website poses as an ordinary consumer to buy tickets, and warns its customers not to tip off the airline about the arrangement. American said Skiplagged has never been authorized to resell the airline’s tickets. “Skiplagged’s conduct is deceptive and abusive,” the airline said in the lawsuit. “Skiplagged deceives the public into believing that, even though it has no authority to form and issue a contract on American’s behalf, somehow it can still issue a completely valid ticket. It cannot. Every ‘ticket’ issued by Skiplagged is at risk of being invalidated.”<br/>

Finnair CE Topi Manner is stepping down from his position, and leaving the flag-carrier to take up a new role. Manner is to join telecom and digital services firm Elisa Corporation, which serves customers in Finland and Estonia, as its chief. He will move to the new position by 1 March next year having formally given notice of resignation from Finnair. Manner has steered the airline through the air transport crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, and has also implemented a strategic shift in the company’s activities after the Ukrainian conflict forced the closure of Russian airspace – badly disrupting Finnair’s crucial Asian routes. “Finnair has emerged from the double crisis as a strong airline, as witnessed by our second-quarter financial performance,” says chair Sanna Suvanto-Harsaae. The airline has yet to name a successor. Manner says the turbulence over the last three years has been the “ultimate stress test” for the carrier’s personnel. “When I move to my new challenge, I will take many learnings with me,” he adds. Elisa Corporation has confirmed Manner’s appointment following the decision by its long-term CE, Veli-Matti Mattila, to retire after 20 years leading the firm.<br/>

Cathay Pacific Airways is experiencing a long-awaited post-pandemic comeback, but Hong Kong's flagship carrier faces mainland competition that will challenge the airline's status as the gateway to China. Cathay reported a net profit of 4.26b Hong Kong dollars ($544m) for the first half of the year. It was the first black ink in four years, up from roughly HK$5b in losses a year earlier. The company is "on the track" to recovery, Chairman Patrick Healy said when presenting earnings last week. After Hong Kong abolished cross-border COVID travel restrictions in February, Cathay's traffic increased 23 times in the first half from a year earlier to 7.81m passengers. Cathay also lowered fixed costs by slashing its workforce to 21,900 employees, down more than 10,000 employees compared with pre-COVID staffing levels. Rising airfares led to higher per-passenger revenue, contributing to improved earnings. July's passenger traffic stood at 1.74m people, Cathay said Wednesday, up roughly eightfold from a year earlier. More people are flying on routes serving Japan, Southeast Asia and mainland China. For the full year, Cathay is expected to make a net profit of HK$7 billion, according to an average of analyst forecasts compiled by Refinitiv. It would be the largest profit since the HK$14b earned in 2010, which included proceeds from stock sales. Prospects are expected to be bumpy, however. There is a strong potential that Cathay will face heightened competition from mainland airlines, said Andrew Yuen, a director at the Aviation Policy and Research Centre in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Cathay earns more than half its revenue from Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan. The carrier is based at Hong Kong International Airport, a regional hub. Cathay's bread and butter over the years has been capturing demand for international travel back and forth from the mainland through Hong Kong.<br/>

Qantas Airways was served with a class-action lawsuit by lawyers who allege the airline failed to refund passengers for flights cancelled during the pandemic and illegally benefited by retaining billion of dollars of customer funds. By instead issuing flight credits with strict conditions of travel, the Australian airline enriched itself with interest-free financing at customers’ expense, according to a lawsuit filed in Federal Court last week by Echo Law and served on Qantas on Monday. Sydney-based Qantas didn’t respond to a request for comment. Fares have soared since Covid travel restrictions eased, forcing customers to pay more than the value of their credits for fresh flights, said Echo law partner Andrew Paull. The airline has pressured passengers to redeem their vouchers or lose the credits entirely, Paull said. The lawsuit is seeking refunds for all remaining credits and compensation for the years that customers have been out of pocket. The claim raise questions about the function — and legality — of travel credits lingering on airline balance sheets around the world. Qantas is this week set to report record annual profit after demand for travel jumped following the pandemic. Qantas racked up some A$2b ($1.3b) in Covid-related travel credits. Last month it encouraged passengers to use up the remaining A$400m of credits, offering double the normal number of loyalty points for bookings made with the vouchers before the end of July.<br/>

Qantas has denied it is engaging in misleading conduct despite promoting a special return fare to London on its website that was scarcely available and which its own sales staff were unable to book for customers. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is considering a complaint which alleges Qantas breached Australia’s consumer law by advertising return economy airfares from Sydney to London’s Heathrow airport as one of its “top offers”, with prices from $2,455 per adult. The promotional offer, featured prominently on the London section of Qantas’ website, is only valid for flights departing between 1 September and 1 October, while its terms and conditions state the sale price is not available for all dates within the specified period. No window for return dates is specified. Story has more.<br/>