For short haul the pattern has been set by the locos - minimal service for minimal price. The only companies that are really making any money or minimal losses at the moment are the same locos. If you want cheap travel - and the answer to that one is, that at the moment, that is exactly what the public wants - you get the service that goes with it. If companies like BA do not adapt to market conditions they will disappear and on the nostalgia threads in a few years there will be a thread saying "Wasn't BA a great airline it's a shame it went bust because no one was flying with them." Ultimately companies will deliver what the market will bear: the full service, high expense model is, for the next few years at least, kaput.