grounded27
Read the whole thread and you will better understand why this will never happen. Bottom line is that the airlines make more money with the current system, if you gave them a more efficient aircraft they would just utilize it on the most suitable hub and spoke route. The manufacturer's design aircraft for their customers needs, the airline not the passenger.
grounded27, have difficulty agreeing with you. Until the early 1980s, airlines operated big airplanes like the 747 on hub-spoke, when the manufacturers introduced the 767, A330, and ETOPS became a reality, airlines opened many point to point operations between US and Europe. Same thing happened in the Pacific with the 777. Airlines have to make money to survive, there's nothing wrong with that. If the manufacturers have super smart designs and can convince the airlines with facts and data that their new cutting edge designs can cater to certain market and show the airlines can make money at reasonable fare levels, the airlines will go for it.
Despite all the negative news in the media, airlines do their best to serve their customers. Often the disconnect is when the passengers want to pay the cheapest coach fare and expect the first class service.
oceancrosser
Er, no actually quite the opposite. Flying e.g. 19 hrs instead of two 9,5 hr legs in any kind of airplane (given it has the range) means the non-stop flight will burn more because of the weight of carrying the fuel. Simple.
oceancrosser, you're right if you compare same routing waypoints with transit vs no transit but typically when you use connecting flights, one often ends up flying few hundred extra miles to find the connecting flights compared to point-to-point operations.