Originally Posted by
ranskis
That is precisely something that Europe could fight against: a direct flight cannot be sold for more than a connecting flight where the same direct flight is included. Or that clauses like "full and sequential use of tickets" are abusive and cannot be enforced.
That would disrupt the whole industry, there would be lobbying against, it would be technically difficult... but it would give incentives to have travels as direct as possible, reducing the amount of wasted fuel and airspace just because customers flying Paris Madrid pass by Frankfurt and those flying Madrid Frankfurt pass by Paris. Or flying more people using the same fuel, aircrafts, airspace, slots, etc.
On top of that, it would bring it closer to what people can understand and since airlines are pushing people to by tickets themselves directly, that the least they should do. Back in the days, you had informed people buying the ticket on behalf of normal people: travel agents. The system was complicated, they were trained for that. Now the system is even more complicated (more fares, more strange rules...) but travellers are expected to book these tickets themselves online. They are not trained for that, they cannot reasonably understand all rules attached to a ticket, making most of these rules unreasonable and void.
I have no doubt that your intention is good, but if you were to indeed impose rules on airlines ensuring that they could not charge more, say for a nonstop flight than for a connecting flight (including the same nonstop flight) or for a single than for a return involving the same outbound, then this would simply result in leisure travellers willing to accept more restrictive conditions to pay less (say, Mr and Mrs Smith and their 3 kids going on their annual holiday) subsidising the tickets of large multinational corporations (say Total or Banco Santander) which need to buy one way nonstop flights for their executive.