Orbitz has
dropped its lawsuit against low-fare search website Skiplagged after agreeing
to no longer redirect traffic to Orbitz’s sites.
Skiplagged also agreed to refrain
from using any Orbitz brands, logos, trademarks or images, Orbitz said in a
statement Monday. As part of the settlement, neither party admitted any
wrongdoing.
In November, Orbitz and
United Airlines sued Skiplagged, which seeking out cheaper
fares via “hidden” cities on flight itineraries with one or more stops. The site allowed users find those cheaper flights, then book them on
Orbitz.
Airlines prohibit hidden-city ticketing, which involves booking a ticket in which the passenger's
intended final destination is not the final city on the itinerary, but
rather an intermediate or connecting city that has a higher published
fare. By booking a ticket to the second city but getting off at the
first, travelers sometimes get a cheaper fare.
Orbitz
had said Skiplagged “likely wrongfully obtained" information about
Orbitz's application program interface (API) in order to supply hidden-city
links to cheaper fares.
Skiplagged was
founded by Aktarer
Zaman, a 2013 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
whose high-tech experience included stints at Amazon and Cisco
Systems.
Zaman
is using crowdfunding site GoFundMe to pay for his legal defense, and had
raised almost $75,000 from about 3,500 people as of Monday.
United
said Monday that it still has a claim against Skiplagged.
“Mr. Zaman continues to openly
encourage customers to engage in deceptive behavior by purchasing hidden-city
tickets,” a United spokesman wrote in an e-mail to Travel
Weekly. “United is not seeking money, but rather an injunction against Mr.
Zaman and Skiplagged to prevent this from happening in the future."