On the flip side, airfares have fallen massively from those days. I recently flew to Newcastle and back for the lovely sum of €16. No baggage, no reserved seats. Even my flights to the canaries this summer, were very reasonable, even with check in baggage. Could I have gotten anything remotely close to this 25 years ago? No.
Reliability has also increased massively, it's rare that I'd ever get a flight delay amounting to more than an hour.
Route choice and route frequency is the biggest winner here though, the cheap lead in fares have caused millions of more passengers to fly, meaning alot more routes and alot more choice on these routes. Charge everyone flying between the UK and ROI £100 each way lead in fares in exchange for a full service experience and see how many passengers avail of this! I can tell ya we wouldn't have the same choice of routes and frequencies we have today!