Quote from Boofhead - "Fly from Dublin to Edinburgh for One Euro plus taxes and no blockout dates, saturday night stays or advance purchases etc. Of course the taxes are sixty to seventy Euros for the same ticket, which shows a lot about just who is making the money here."
Except, of course, only a very small percentage of the so called "taxes" are going to the government. For me to fly from Stansted to Dublin tommorow would cost £24.99 (cheapest fare.) The total I would have to pay would be £39.67, as there is a "taxes and charges" addition of £14.68. Of this, a mere £5 is a government imposed tax - the rest ends up with the airline (in this case, Ryanair) in one way or another, through "PSC, Ins and Wchr levy."
I recently travelled with a group of 36 people to Frankfurt Hahn, and was interested to see that we had been charged £81 as a wheelchair levy, despite none of us being disabled. Through such disguised "taxes" the airlines manage to make a substantial and quite stealthy additional income.
I think that the five points that Watercheck made to account for greater profitability amongst european airlines are valid. I also believe that the US administration is to blame for part of the current problem with the legacy carriers - it simply does not make long term economic sense to provide them with such a high level of bankruptcy protection, and this situation cannot persist indefinately. Part of the reason that many european airlines continue to be succesful post 9/11 is that we witnessed the demise of two major national airlines (Sabena and Swissair.) The need to rapidly cut capacity and otherwise adapt was quickly realised. In the US, the legacy carriers are too quick to jump under chapter 11 protection, and too slow to take real action to avoid a future crisis.