Wise words from Scroggsy. It is indeed amazing the rate at which the low costs are expanding. But its not a simplistic development by any means.
The low costs grow whislt some of the established carriers shrink capacity therefore to some extent pax are just being stolen from one airline to another. At the same time a low cost carrier will require a pilot to fly 900hrs a year instead of perhaps 650 in BA. Net result the same pax are being flown by fewer pilots working longer hours...
On the other hand the low costs are definitely growing new markets. I spent the weekend in Prague as it happens. You walk into Prague departures and look at the screen and see 744 Go seats a available that day (every day) from Prague to the UK. (East Mids, Bristol, Stansted). BMIBaby are also just starting a more or less daily service making a total of about a thousand seats a day from the UK to Prague on the scheduled low cost model. Thats NOT satisfying existing demand at a lower cost. That IS putting cheap flights to Prague in peoples faces and leading them to just go where they would not have considered before.
Such new growth is of course great news as it means the EU is becoming more like the US in terms of a hop-on-a-flight and just go culture.
On balance the low cost phenomenon is merely a replication of what happened in the US and this is a broadly Very Good Thing for aviation. However, you need perspective. Go might grow by 80-odd percent in a year. But that is more than wiped out by BA shrinking by 8 percent in the same year...
Things will recover. I am sure in the boom years of the mid - late 2000's BA Virgin BMI and the rest will be posting telephone digit profits in their flashy A380's. Their model will then be the darling of the industry once more. Its all swings and roundabouts in the end.
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