The teenager whose 'skiplagging' ticket was canceled by American Airlines 'didn't think it was something that was frowned upon,' the teen's mom says

• The mother of a teen whose ticket was canceled says he "didn't think skiplagging was frowned upon."
• Lisa Parsons told Insider that it was her 17-year-old son's first time flying alone.

The mother of a teenager whose ticket was canceled by American Airlines because he wasn't planning to board his connecting flight says her son didn't know skiplagging was frowned upon.

Lisa Parsons told Insider that neither she nor her 17-year-old son was aware that skiplagging broke the airline's conditions of carriage, a list of rules passengers have to follow when flying with the airline.

The teenager was scheduled to fly from Gainesville, Florida, to New York City in July. But his parents planned for him to deplane during his layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he lives with his family. Skipping the final leg to New York City is a practice that's banned by the airline.

"My kid was easily intimidated as it was his first time flying alone," Parsons said, adding that she booked the ticket for her son. "He didn't think that it was something that was frowned upon," she continued.

Parsons said her son was confronted at the check-in area by several American Airlines employees and that he didn't receive his boarding pass. She said that American canceled her son's ticket immediately and that the staff told him that his ticket was "flagged" in the system.

"They basically left him to sit at the airport for a while. Several flights left for Charlotte, but they didn't offer him an opportunity to get on any of these flights," Parsons added. She said she had to purchase a new direct ticket that cost more than $400 to fly her son to Charlotte.

Skiplagging — a cost-saving strategy also known as "hidden city" or "throwaway ticketing" — involves booking tickets with a layover and skipping the flight to the final destination. It's a practice prohibited by many airlines.

American Airlines' conditions of carriage say that purchasing "a ticket without intending to fly all flights to gain lower fares" is prohibited as it exploits and circumvents ticket fares.

Parsons said she used Skiplagged, the controversial website that shows hidden-city tickets, to find cheap flights. The family had taken three flights in 10 years and had never skipped them, she said.

"The intention was not to shoplift or take away from the airline's big profits. The intention was to get a good flight at the right time for a price," Parsons continued, adding that American "seemed to be a reputable airline."

American previously announced in a memo that it would start cracking down on skiplagging — and the teenager hasn't been the only one punished for attempting to skip the final leg.

In 2020, American kicked out a passenger from its frequent-flyer program for skiplagging 95 times and asked him to pay more than $10,000. And in 2021, another passenger said they had been billed $1,000 for skiplagging.