Good point
DeepDene and welcome aboard our 'cabin'.
My guess is that the carriers, if faced with such a ruling will use (in any order):
- Lobbying - both above and below board (i.e. old friends)
- "If we cannot fill our a/c with these indirect tickets, we will lose business and cut jobs.
- So you will lose tax revenue from both sides.
- "There will be nothing to stop people buying two separate tickets" Except, as discussed, the problems of insurance and connections - but that will not stop people buying two tickets to save money.
It sounds like your company is one of those that concentrates on visible costs (ticket price) and forgets the invisible costs. First and formost is staff time and then how tired they are and the loss of ability. Also, this pushes the cost back on to the staff and their families. They could make a
PR point about using directs and saving fuel and time and gain a lot of good will from their staff that have to travel. But the accountants don't like that. And, do the accountants and MD/CEO also have to fly indirect?
I have told here before the story of a client refusing to pay for me to go Biz to HKG. So I went, LHR-SFO for a day's business for the client and then one day off before going SFO-HKG arriving in the evening. That's 21 hrs all in coach and two thirds the way around the world, across the date line. I staggered into the client the next morning to be told they had saved another day by bringing the important presentations forward. I was the senior consultant who had to judge these presentations for the contract and I was falling asleep! Stupid, stupid, stupid. But it looked good on paper.
