Ryanair and Wizzair are notorious to make profit out of every ticket. They live to NOT lose money. Yes some tickets do sell for £5 and some sell for £250 or more, depending the date/time you buy it.

My shock is how companies like Thomas Cook manage to survive by constantly selling below cost just to keep alive. In my mind this is just another Uber, it only stays alive because people just keep throwing money at it. I wouldn't be surprised if TUI, Itaka, and others follow suite.

I am always shocked to see their prices for a 5-6-7 day trip, at a fraction of what I would have paid. I do know that scaling reduces prices, but well.. apparently not really.. like the PIIGS economies the moment lending froze, Thomas went under.

They sure nickel and dime - but still, even after that, I can't believe how cheap flights can be. And if you buy tickets in advance then (compared to US) it feels like a rounding error to my spending, impossible to break even - there is no way you don't cost more than $5 bucks to fly.

I always wonder, are they really masters of profitability or some sort of scheme going on.

According to Wikipedia, 20% of Ryanair's revenue is ancillary (not tickets)

Apparently people will pay a premium to be treated like a human.

United has been finding this out here states-side. Options that used to be standard for a class of seating are now upsold-options for more than the delta of the ticket price. Because fuck you, that's why.

Wouldn't the failure of competitors and decrease in available flights result in the opposite? The surviving economy airlines will have more demand, higher prices, and will do better as a result?

Disclaimer: I have no knowledge or expertise in this field other than being subscribed to Wendover Productions.

In an optimally functioning world yeah - in an artificial world, where all of them lose money and are propped up artificially, one failure will lead to the rest of them perhaps losing a little less money ...

or it could be that travel drops - fewer flights overall may mean fewer passengers for all of them - most flying is purely leisure

The long haul lCCs are. Ryan Air and Easy Jet make money, but they're in a very different space than WOW, Iceland, Norwegian, ETC. The Story of thmas cook is more complicated too as they were a travel agency as well.

They were never profitable in an operational sense and just coast on very generous public subsidies.