I’m going to make an extremely rare post just to chip in here and say do people really believe that to be the case? (also responding to some of the more extreme positions up thread where it was suggested restrictive tariffs would be got rid of altogether)

It seems to be entirely forgotten that airlines are a competitive commercial business, good luck trying to fill aircraft if they were to charge everyone fully flexible one way fares at today’s prevailing rates. Even if they were to try such an absurdity someone else would doubtless fill the breach with saner fares and profit handsomely from it no doubt.

Also to note — the tariff abuse argument is clearly a real one and certainly where you have the historically really cheap fares ex for example Cairo and Colombo, those could not be offered if everyone could just skip the outbound leg — all the same if someone’s permanent residence is in the country in question or indeed if the sector in question is subsequently booked and flown it must make tariff abuse much less likely. Those should not in principle be hard points for an airline to check.