Lufthansa eyes one-way tickets across Europe

An Airbus 380 of German airline Lufthansa is parked at Frankfurt airport July 18, 2011.

(Reuters.com) - Lufthansa customers could soon have more choice of one-way destinations within Europe, as the airline considers expanding a scheme that currently covers only tickets for flights within Germany, or selected countries such as Poland and Britain.

"We are checking at the moment under which conditions, on which routes and at which rates that would make sense," said Jens Bischof, sales chief of the passenger airline business at Lufthansa, according to an excerpt of an interview to be published in travel industry magazine "fvw" on Thursday.

Currently, European legacy airlines such as Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) and Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA) sell mostly return tickets and even where one-way tickets are available, they can often cost much more than returns. This has left a gap for low-cost airlines such as Ryanair (RYA.I), EasyJet (EZJ.L) and Air Berlin (AB1.DE) to snap up price-conscious customers.

In a challenge to the low-cost carriers, Lufthansa has set the starting price of a one-way ticket to Britain at 69 euros, for example.

No matter where they fly though, passengers in Europe can still expect higher prices next year once a new European emissions trading scheme comes into effect. "When the emission trading planned by the EU starts, which we reject in its current form, we will have a additional burden of up to 350 million euros. We cannot compensate that," Bischof said.

From January 1 next year, airlines landing in the European Union's 27 member states will have to join the bloc's $120 billion emissions trading scheme, which obliges carriers to pay for each tonne of carbon dioxide pollution above a fixed cap.

The plans have drawn howls of protest from airlines within Europe, and harsh words from rivals in the United States and China. European airlines fear that whilst they will be compelled to buy certificates, rivals may not, which they say will distort competition. While a U.S. industry group is challenging the plans in court, China has threatened retaliatory measures.

(Reporting by Edward Taylor and Victoria Bryan)