Thanks. What's the issue for airlines when a passenger misses a flight intentionally to save money.? Is it only because the ticket price difference, or do airline incur additional fee/charge/expenses/etc. when someone miss their flights, or some other reason?

@FranckDernoncourt Meaning it's irrelevant that you 'missed a flight'. The issue is technically theft of revenue by going to Chicago but only paying for Duluth.

You can say it is wrong, but it is clearly not theft.

"Theft" is a criminal charge. Airlines don't like it when you break the contract and don't fly to your final destination, but that's emphatically not a crime.

Arguably, airlines are banks and the commercial flight component is a loss-leader.

@Johns-305 Go ahead, find me a news story about somebody facing criminal charges for hidden city ticketing.

This is not theft of services, because the carriage contract does not oblige the customer to take all of the flights, only gives them a right to. This is no different than purchasing a double feature movie ticket and walking out on the B-movie.

"is just as much a crime" source and legal jurisdiction?

Using the same reasoning I could also call not flying at all "theft". OMG, even if I accidentally miss my connection or my entire flight suddenly I become a despicable, horrible, nasty thief. I can pay 400$, not fly at all, and become a criminal!!1!One! @Johns-305, you blew my mind. /s

@CharonX haha, no. Intent is a core legal concept and in the case of hidden city ticketing, there is clear intent. You're just embarrassing yourself here.

@Therac OMG, stop while I'm ahead. If the double feature is priced less than the single feature, it's theft. Too trivial to do anything about but still theft.

@Therac You're right, but you don't know why. No, they can't force you to fly, that would be kidnapping, but they then have the right to charge you for the service provided.

"You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means"

@njzk2 You need to try harder. Apparently the Texas Legislature doesn't know what it means either...oh...wait..."the actor intentionally or knowingly secures performance of the service by deception, threat, or false token" That and numerous other definitions of Theft of Service(s).

finally you're giving some piece of information, in this case the legal framework in which you're reasoning (still no link to any source, however). took you long enough, too. I still haven't seen any precedence that would have established that hidden ticketing is successfully prosecuted as theft of service, I don't suppose you can be bothered?

@njzk2 Look, just admit you got it wrong instead of trying to nitpick easily identifiable concepts. Just because you don't understand the Answer doesn't mean it's wrong. So it's on you to do better.