Desk-pilot,
To be fair to Ryanair (and trust me, I'm not a fan) they did make an operating profit. The reason they made a loss is because of their investments. If you exclude their Aer Lingus write down alone (£220m) then they were profitable, even with their poor fuel hedging. I think next year will see strong profitability which, to be perfectly honest, is unlikely to be the case with BA.
I'm not convinced of the value of the distinction between Legacy and LoCo any more. The differences are increasingly cosmetic and I am certain that some airlines which are identified as belonging to either group will fail and some will continue to trade. The problems faced by each are similar. The options are similarly limited. All airlines are trying to cut operating costs, that is a given. After that the options are to improve yield by cutting capacity, gaining market share and/or increasing ticket prices and ancillary charges. There is also the possibility of merging and acquiring to achieve some of the above.
Ultimately there is only so much airlines can do in the face of weakened product demand but I believe it is facile to state that one business "model" or another is failed.