Have to say that "SRBs stubborness" and "Cold War and Berlins ecnomic decline" are not valid reasons. Think again.
Many carriers are taking on "hybrid" characteristics as they attempt to deal with difficult circumstances.
Very early on, carriers such as BD and EI and several North American carriers, for example, started charging for catering on shorthaul flights.
Then came booking with credit card charges.
Others got involved in charters and holidays in varying degrees, as well as running standard longhaul flights, for example, BA, VS, UX, SS.
U2 has adopted allocated seating and is chasing business travellers, while FR remains a pure "no frills" operation.
Then there's your example of the similarities of AB and ZB.
Things are not always as cut and dried as they appear at first.
I used the terms "SRBs stubborness" and "Cold War and Berlins ecnomic decline" as basic terms for detailed reasons why Britain and Germany have ended up with more than 1 full-service (or hybrid in you must) carrier
If you want to know those reasons in detail then I am more than happy to explain
I agree on you point about airlines becoming more like "hybrid carriers", also it is not the case that its LCCs that are the ones that doing credit card charges, the only "compulsory charge" Full-Service Carriers do is "fuel surcharges" their use has fallen in recent years
I would also make the point that my point about full-service carriers also includes "hybrid" airlines as well
It would be interesting to see how Easyjet will become in the near future however...
Also how come you are still suggesting that Corsair, they are a charter airline (like Thomson) who do scheduled services "on the side"
As for Air Europa, they are more like Monarch and they are also owned by travel agents
BA and VS do Charter, but they are on the side and their main business is still providing full-service scheduled services
VS admitting however have close ties with Virgin Holidays, but don't provide charter flights on their behalf, although most of the routes out of LGW are mostly customers from that travel agent
It's funny how people put ZB slightly above low cost. They are nothing but low cost these days and they are certainly not comparable with AB!
I compared both airlines on the basis that both have business model that consists equally both of charter and scheduled flights (although both are increasing preferring the latter)