Benish:
What makes you think JET2 will be around in the future? Those short breaks in Alicante or Amsterdam are a luxury that before long, many punters will no longer be able to justify. J2 and many other smaller lo-co operations were born from the late 90's flying boom that was enabled by lots of disposable income, continual cost-cutting in the airline industry and availability of easy credit for airlines to expand. None of these conditions exist now. The likes of J2 don't have the kind of extensive and varied route network of EZY to be viable in the present economic climate.
The 1973-4 recession saw the demise of Court Line, which I remember well. One of the UK's biggest holiday airlines, it was also built on a very rapidly growing market, and cheap credit for expansion, together with cheap fuel. Sounds familiar? The 1973-4 recession and big increases in fuel prices soon changed the economics of the operation, and their collapse took many by surprise.
The early 1990's downturn saw the collapse of Air Europe, Dan-Air (taken over by BA for peanuts), Paramount and many others.
My money is on EZY and FlyBe surviving this recession, among the UK-based lo-co's. I'm not convinced any of the others will make it.