But of course they are a proper commercial outfit and not a half way house, who throw in the towel on their obligations if it is less profitable and when it suits them.
Air travel and rail travel are two very different beasts, and in my humble opinion there are far too many utterly specious comparisons made between them when it comes to the matter of ticketing. I can tell you feel strongly about this, but with respect I think you have fallen into this trap, and I vehemently disagree with your argument.
Firstly, your initial point: the railways release their cheapest fares 12 weeks ahead of travel, the airlines six months (or indeed longer, as I believe many airlines open reservations a year ahead of time). You wouldn't get things any cheaper if the railway released fares six months ahead of time, the fares wouldn't change.
Secondly, airlines are obliged to maintain passenger manifests with names, addresses and where applicable passport or ID details of all passengers on-board. Every single passenger has to provide these when they book. That means that the airline industry is set up with databases that contain all of this information for all passengers who have booked, making it a relatively straightforward process to contact all passengers on a given flight should the time change. Rail passengers in this country are, quite rightly in my opinion, able to book tickets, including advance fares at a station, without providing any personal details at all: this means they are not necessarily contactable once they have booked should there be a change in the timetable.
Thirdly, Easyjet and other budget airlines operate strictly as "point-to-point" carriers, so they make no allowance whatsoever for connections even with their own services. They can, therefore, change the time of a flight almost on a whim should they choose to, and have no liability to the customer for connections that they will miss as a result. The railway provides a huge variety of connecting services and has an obligation to get passengers there by the last train or accommodate them overnight, so again it would not be reasonable to open advance ticket sales until the timetable has been confirmed, which happens 12 weeks out.
Fourth, the density of airline traffic isn't even close to that of rail traffic, so the odd time change here and there won't be a huge administrative burden to process. Try contacting everyone with a seat reservation on every train service for weeks or months if the timetable has to be altered after the booking.
It would be possible for the railways to adopt the same ticketing policy as the airlines, but you should be very, very careful what you wish for: try travelling on Amtrak in the US which effectively does ticket as an airline. You'll find utterly eyewatering walk-up fares even off-peak, so that last-minute or spur-of-the-moment travel is just not possible. You'll find yourself denied access to any train without a reservation. You'll find staggeringly long booking office queues whilst the bureaucratic ticketing process (which involves giving full contact details and producing government-issued ID) grinds slowly along.
In summary, I think that what you suggest is utterly unworkable.
Finally, you mention that the airfare costs less then the train to the airport
or the cost of fuel and parking. Doesn't that suggest to you that the flight you're taking is artificially cheap, rather than the ground transport being artificially expensive? There will be plenty of other people on-board your Easyjet flight who didn't have the luxury of being able to book months in advance and have paid through the nose for the privilege of being there.
