If you look carefully you will find many short haul fares to europe that are very comparable to the likes of Easyjet etc and you don't get all the rubbish that comes with the LCC. I think people have it stuck in their heads that to fly BA you will always pay more, and this is clearly a massive marketing problem that I think BA should be addressing sooner rather than later.
Well said Aviator - and absolutely spot on. The likes of BA marketing have been very poor in getting this message across.
Low cost is a very relative term, I have seen enough families stranded at a check-in desk at 01am paying out a fortune on hotac and alternative flights after their lcc flight had been canx.
But the real issue at hand when we start talking about if lcc's will survive (or conversely if legacy carriers will fade away) will lie in this question: will lcc start nickle and diming when it comes to safety? This could be on training, human factors, equipment, scheduling etc, and will this be a contributary factor if (God forbid) we have an incident with loss of life?
IMHO this will prove to be the differentiator in due course....