Originally Posted by
GUWonder
What makes you so sure that travel insurance would come to the rescue of all of these passengers?
Your last sentence/paragraph above is the industry apologist line, but is there any evidence of that being true? What I have seen on roundtrip TATL itineraries originating in the EU may suggest otherwise, given the US airlines tend to not be cheaper than the EU airlines and yet 261/2004 applies more to the EU airlines on these trips than to US airlines.
Comparing EU carriers which enjoy government-protected monopolies to US carriers is comparing apples to oranges.
If two operating businesses actually did face the same cost structure in all respects except one, that one additional item would negatively impact the net revenue of the operating business facing that item.