Re:United Airlines bans AI agents from booking flights on be...
by Klathmon on Wednesday November 11, 2026 @08:28PM
(#50461805)
Until blocking the "normal" way to use agents becomes common enough that someone starts selling an off the shelf "Agentic KVM" and then the arms race begins.
And I personally don't feel bad at all. These companies have optimized everything to the extreme with absolutely zero consideration for the customer. I've personally seen airlines:
* charge more depending on your browser/os
* charge more if you buy multiple seats vs buying each ticket independently
* advertise cheap tickets that you realistically can't buy for that price because they exclude carry ons or they won't let your family sit together
* will try their absolute hardest to give you "airline credit" if the flight is canceled and you need to repeatedly badger them and decline the airline credit offers to get the refund you're legally entitled to
* overbooking flights then kicking people off them the day of and there's nothing you can do about it
* Frontier once charged me $25 to print the boarding pass once because my screen was cracked and it wouldn't scan
Now that I can have an agent map out their exploitative pricing system and get me the algorithmically cheapest ticket that they offer, suddenly it's a problem?
And I personally don't feel bad at all. These companies have optimized everything to the extreme with absolutely zero consideration for the customer. I've personally seen airlines:
* charge more depending on your browser/os * charge more if you buy multiple seats vs buying each ticket independently * advertise cheap tickets that you realistically can't buy for that price because they exclude carry ons or they won't let your family sit together * will try their absolute hardest to give you "airline credit" if the flight is canceled and you need to repeatedly badger them and decline the airline credit offers to get the refund you're legally entitled to * overbooking flights then kicking people off them the day of and there's nothing you can do about it * Frontier once charged me $25 to print the boarding pass once because my screen was cracked and it wouldn't scan
Now that I can have an agent map out their exploitative pricing system and get me the algorithmically cheapest ticket that they offer, suddenly it's a problem?