Thanks for your replies.
The finances of the airline world really are, at best, odd and at worst very weird!
At $1.80 a sector - as per Hamrahs' example - the other overheads must be quite exceptional to justify some of the short haul fares. I do appreciate that landing fees/parking can be very high.Even the LoCOs seem to charge high on that basis - the cheapest part of the equation seems to be the cost of the aeroplane! There does seem to be a high 'staff to plane ratio' (taking into account all of the employees not just the on plane jobs - this is not a criticism it's a comment so please don't bite!! ) within the industry so I guess that this must be the largest cost in reality.
Interesting
Thanks
Bernie