"Regimentation": For a variety of reason(s) which as far as we can tell nobody understands for sure (although we have a lot of hypotheses about them, which we will be happy to discuss with you via email or cyberchat), the airlines like to REGIMENT people in return for allowing them to board their airplanes at a cost lower than the normal outrageous prices they tend to demand. (We say they are "outrageous" because they reflect a markup which can sometimes go as high as 2000% -- yep, you read that correctly, two THOUSAND, not two HUNDRED, percent! -- over the direct operating cost of producing the transportation -- in any other industry besides the air-transportation business, any reasonable person, and, usually, any reasonable government, would consider this kind of markup "price-gouging".)

That is, they like to impose "RESTRICTIONS" on people in terms of dates of travel, date of transaction, specific itineraries, and even sometimes TIMES OF DAY, imposing "penalties" -- sometimes very SEVERE ones -- on people who "violate" these "restrictions".

The Airhitch® ethos is completely OPPOSED to this sort of practice, and we view it as a curtailment of individual liberty of movement (which, as any constitutional lawyer will tell you, is one of the basic "unalienable rights" supposedly guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence, based on the way the courts have interpreted it).

But quite apart from the philosophical, political, and ethical considerations involved, on the practical level the net result of these "restrictions" is to ADD TO COST for the unstructured, exploratory traveler whose interests Airhitch® was set up to protect and nurture.

Why? Because if you are traveling unstructuredly and exploratorily, it is ALMOST FOR SURE that at some point along the way you are going to "violate" any "restrictions" imposed upon you by those more powerful than you in an attempt to SQUEEZE MORE MONEY OUT OF YOU.

And the worst part of this absurd airline practice, which DISCRIMINATES HEAVILY against those of us who travel unstructuredly and exploratorily, is that many people, when they first set out on their trips, DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND IT. They sometimes don't even understand that IT EXISTS, but even if they do, their understanding is VERY VAGUE and somehow it doesn't seem "real": it's as if someone sold you a toaster at a discount, but told you that in return for the discount, you would have to agree to use the toaster only on certain days of the week or at certain times of the day or to toast a certain kind of bread, or that you would have to pay for the toaster weeks in advance and "wait forever" before you could start benefitting from the use of it! Who would buy, under such circumstances? Only suckers, that's who! And yet, the airline industry has ROUTINELY suckered a naive public SINCE ITS INCEPTION.

This is ONE of the reasons that the airlines let THOUSANDS of seats go empty every day...even though there may be passengers who would like to fly in those seats (the passengers don't "fit the restrictions"!); and one of the MAJOR sociopolitical reasons for the EXISTENCE OF AIRHITCH®.