I can choose either Ryanair, EasyJet, Norwegian, BA or SAS to fly direct to London. Just clicking around FlightConnections [1], about half of routes to 1500-2000km-away Europe have more than one airline. For example, two airlines fly to Stuttgart and Zürich, but one each to Basel and Luxembourg.

Of course, if you live near a smaller airport there's less choice -- but you are probably more used to connecting flights in that case.

[1] https://www.flightconnections.com/