Tangier to Barcelona?

Jet4you, a discount airline that's part of the giant British-based firm, TUI Travel, flies Tangiers-Barcelona. Flights total about 65 Euro, all in. The only other options are ferry to Tarifa, bus to Algeciras, then one of a couple of trains/day or the bus (via Malaga is the most frequent schedule), which will take most of the day.

I hope you're right, but when I go to the site and choose a one-way flight TNG>BCN, I see this in a red box on the right:

"All passengers who are not citizens or legal residents of an EU country and are travelling from Morocco with a tourist visa must possess a return ticket in compliance with regulations in force."

I guess an email is in order. I would think that the Spanish would be more wary of one-way tickets coming from Morocco than vice versa.

Thanks, Norm. Even if I did want to take a plane (which I really, really don't for various reasons) it doesn't look like Jet4You is an option for Americans. When choosing a ticket on their site, there's a disclaimer off to the side noting that any non-EU residents or non-Moroccan citizens must purchase a return (round trip) ticket.

The disclaimer applies to non-EU and non-Moroccan citizens arriving in Morocco by air....it's Moroccan law, and won't affect you if you are just planning to fly out. They just want to make sure you're actually planning to leave their country at a foreseeable time!
I think you'll also find that, since you, as an American, don't need a visa to travel into the E-U countries, it won't apply to you as you arrive back in Spain.
I was basing my response on your post, which said "I really don't want to fly unless I found a dirt cheap direct Tangier>Barcelona flight (which doesn't exist"

Youère correct....they are wary. But you won't be on a visa, and you will have your own return ticket to the U-S, so that should be enough to convince them. But an e-mail's a good idea.

For anyone else looking into flights along this route, consider first traveling to Malaga and then flying from there. Malaga is serviced by several cheap air lines (Vueling, Spanair, AirEuropa, etc). Of course you'll spend a bit more time in transit, however consider that Jet4you has only one flight per day, landing in Barcelona at 10:30, while flights from Malaga land at many different (earlier) times. I did a rough calculation of costs, and even factoring in a ferry back to Tarifa/Algeciras and bus/train to Malaga, it's slightly cheaper than Jet4you from Tangier because the flights are much less ($36/pp for July, for example).