It's an interesting point. A decade ago when low cost flying really took off, flights were a lot cheaper than they are now. Even the last-minute bargain fares on Ryanair are at least £10 now, back in the day they marketed £1 flights. At the same time BA and other legacy carriers have stripped away the service to the bare minimum of a drink and snack and reduced the price accordingly. They are even trialling a 'without baggage' fare from LGW. This has reduced the gap between them dramatically.
In terms of route network, low cost carriers have been battling with charter airlines. Most loco's, especially EZY, now offer a lot of flights to Spain, the Canaries, Greece etc and target holidaymakers. This has never really been the legacy market and they're happy to target mostly long haul feed and business traffic. The charter airlines have lost out, resulting in Monarch trying (somewhat slowly) to become a low cost scheduled carrier and Thomas Cook nearly going bankrupt. Charter routes are now the ones where they can't be replaced as easily (Egypt, Cape Verde, Turkey, Florida, Caribbean). The other aspect of this is LHR. Had Easyjet/Ryanair been able to get access to LHR like they have at Barcelona, Schiphol and Paris then they might have put more pressure on BA short haul.
Last edited by ManUtd1999; 26th Mar 2013 at 23:06.