Originally Posted by
extramileage
Tangent: having huge price differences on "similar" routings is not sustainable, regardless of rules. There are limits to O&D price discrimination (in the economics sense)....
At some point people will make the economic decision to "game" the system (legitimately or illegitimately) or a competitor takes the business or someone reinvents the business model to give consumers what they want. In the long term, you can't "protect" that revenue against market forces (just ask the CD industry, the taxi industry, two name a couple).
Prices need to converge to a reasonable point where that extra stop is not "worth it".
Continuing on your tangent - the convergence is extremely difficult in the airline industry because of the massive barriers to entry in the market: on most journeys there are only a couple of competitors (and on the most busy routes there are often anti-trust immunized JVs - LON-NYC) for each routing.
Economically it is easier to cheaper to create artificial discouragement (checking bag policy) than lose inflated O&D revenue.
At least until Norwegian comes along with their 200 dollar fare LGW-SIN!