easy/Go/Ryan must adhere to the same regulations and inspections as BA/EI/BD, right? Obviously BA have a huge maintenance base with decades of experience and black boxes on the aircraft that monitor equipment and pilot performance (rate of rotation etc) which easy et al may lack but nonetheless I still don't accept that easy/Go/Ryan are less safe (they may lack the operational history and experience of BA but surely their third party maintenance subcontractors makes up for that?). The ValuJet example is slightly spurious, there is mention of the "tombstone / autopsy approach" but an airline don't have to actually write aircraft off to show a trend - a VJ DC9 burned out on the runway at ATL and there were other serious incidents before the big one in Florida. I don't recall anything of that severity from any of our own low cost airlines. Just on the subject of fleet age, there is no comparison. Fleets of youngish or early-middle aged 737-300s and spanking NGs (other than Ryanair's remaining -200s) are hardly the same as VJ's clapped out 30 year old DC9-30s.
Perhaps if I'm so sure about the safety of European low cost airlines I didn't need to post here but I was curious about others' reactions. Anyone else? Tilii, I don't think my "rudely self answered question" was as rude as your dismissive reply.