The lcc's in Europe have not been following the success story of South West to its bare details. The Southwest management were pioneers in what they did, and they made money, and still make money because they set out to provide a good product for a good price. They have good people working for them, and day in and day out they provide good service for a good price, by keeping their cost lbase at a low level.
The European counterparts, although with the benefit of a 20 year history of lcc in USA have not copied their mentors because they did not set out to provide the service needed in the European Market. They set out to make money, and not provide a good product. You can make money, and lots of it if you have a good product, but you will not necessarily make money if that is your only goal.
IMHO the unnamed Irish airline I work for has lost the plot, and is in a vicious cycle they created themselves. Low quality product requiing a low price, low yielding passengers, further lowering of quality to attract pax, by lowering prices, and further errosion of a good customer base, because at some point pax had enough of a bad product, and the only pax you attract are those that cannot afford to spend money on the airplane. The pax figures may be up for the unnamed Irish company, but our yields are down, the average spending on the aircraft is way down, and at present and in the near future we will be making money only from anciliaries and not our core business.