Ah the delights of accountants!
Virgin trumpeted their 'profit' to city which seemed miraculous until the city dissected them and discovered that the figures that were released were somewhat open to interpretation and that the airline actually made a loss.
Now we have O'Leary trumpeting HIS lo-cost model as being hugely successful and making huge profits but the company lost money? Oh I know, lets keep the rhetoric and blame the fiscal loss on a write down of assets not associated with Ryan-Air. That's it, we can load the loss squarely on Air Lingus. Also let's keep quiet about the horrendous mistakes we made on fuel hedging. O'Learys business model is totally dependant on continued expansion. If he doesn't play up his model to the investing world then he is in trouble.
Not all that is fudged by the pencil pushers is as first meets the eye.
Remember, there are lies, damn lies and then statistics. I think financial reports follow squarely on after statistics.
As to Legacy failing? I don't think the Lo Cost model is conducive to Long Haul travel otherwise O'Leary would be doing it. There is a separate market strategy emerging here and I think there is place for both models in the future. Lets face it it would be akin to Fiat stating that there was no place on the road any more for Ferrari as it's cars do the same job but cheaper. However, there will always be alot of people who want a Ferrari and not a Fiat.