Don’t panic about the Lufthansa passenger being sued – we’re all gaming the system to get a cheap flight

I have been guilty of tariff abuse on an industrial scale, often with the airline’s connivance. But as airlines defend the high-fare trips that underpin their business models, don’t be surprised if a bill arrives shortly after you no-show for the final leg

Airline passengers have always played the system. In the 20th century this was mainly because fares were extremely high. For a couple of decades after the start of the jumbo jet age, the mismatch between what people could afford to pay and what the price-matching airlines were officially obliged to charge was astronomical.

As a result, many airlines indulged in “tariff abuse” of their own. They sold cheap tickets through back-street travel agents with techniques such as backdating ticket stamps – selling short-notice Apex tickets that officially required three months’ advance-purchase.

Bonafide groups of passengers were allowed to buy cheap transatlantic seats on “affinity charters”, but I doubt anyone who availed of these flights was actually “a member of a club, which has been formed for a purpose other than air travel, who attends regular meetings”. Spurious membership cards were handed out along with the tickets, in case (as often happened) government inspectors conducted a swoop in a futile bid to stamp out cheap flying.

I have been guilty of tariff abuse on an industrial scale, often with the airline’s connivance.

For cheap charter flights to Spain and Greece, we purchasers of seat-only deals had to pretend to be property owners – signing entirely fictitious legal agreements leasing non-existent villas back to the carrier who would, in turn, sublet the imaginary property back to the passenger for a nominal £1. That meant the deal constituted a package holiday, so the cost of the flight could legally undercut scheduled fares.

British Airways, meanwhile, worked with a web of agents in Barcelona to sell one-way flights to London for “only” £70, rather than the official fare of three times more; an Argentinian agent drove me across the city to pick up a ticket that insisted I was on an inclusive tour to the UK.

When planes made a series of stops, it was possible to board with a ticket to the nearest destination and stay on the plane, hoping no one would notice; I procured a free domestic flight in Cuba through what I suppose is technically stowing away.

Impersonation was also a frequent technique: unwanted tickets (or unused return halves) were sold semi-openly with the only stipulation being that the gender of the purchaser must match that of the vendor; in the halcyon days before 9/11, booking names were rarely checked against passports.

On one flight where I was travelling on a ticket that previously belonged to Mr Lawrence Hourahane of Tenby, South Wales, my cover was nearly blown when an acquaintance on the same flight used my real name. But I don’t suppose anyone would have cared. Airlines had yet to be exposed to the full ferocity of competition.

Once the skies opened and airlines could charge what they liked, and the market would bear, fares fell. But to compete and survive, carriers had to become adroit at “yield management”: extracting the most they could for every seat. Air Canada, for example, knew that its mid-May Airbus from Toronto to Amsterdam would never fill unless it constructed some deep discounts to other destinations. So it bought some seats on British Airways from Amsterdam to Gatwick and flogged the itinerary for £140. I daresay some shrewd passengers bought the deal even if they were heading only as far as the Dutch capital, and hopped off at Schiphol airport (bearing hand luggage only) to halve the normal fare.

Good luck to them, and to you should you decide to breach the conditions of contract. But as airlines defend the high-fare trips that underpin their business models, don’t be surprised if a bill arrives shortly after you no-show for the final leg.