I'm pleased to see that airfrance.us no longer restricts you to buying tickets originating in the US.

You now get a drop-down menu that includes Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Guadaloupe, Ireland, Italy, Martinique, Spain, the UK and the US.

This is a big improvement.

But it needs to go all the way. For example, I am trying to book a ticket from Japan to France. I can't even buy this on the France site, I have to go to the Japan site (and if I couldn't read Japanese, I would have to go to the English site).

Most other airlines' sites are global. I can go to Continental.com and buy tickets from anywhere to anywhere. Ditto the Britishairways.com US or UK site (difference primarily the currency). Ditto Lufthansa.com.

Now, KLM is even more restrictive. I wonder why?

Let's say I am an Italian but want to buy a ticket from Tokyo to Amsterdam. I can only see this site in Japanese or English. Which is silly, since I may only speak Italian ... and there actually IS an Italian version of the site ... just restricted to flights originating in Italy.

Other than KL and AF ... I know of no other airline that is so restrictive. Why?

I see the recent expansion of the Airfrance.US site to allow purchase of flights originating in 12 countries as a positive step ... but what about the other 88 or so countries?