The LCC tag has become somewhat watered down over the years. Years ago there were two carriers, in black and white: those that were low-cost and those that were "legacy". Carriers such as Southwest, JetBlue, Ryanair, EasyJet, and Westjet - the more well known LCC's - have/had a cost structure that warrants the low-cost label. Meanwhile, restructured "legacy" carriers have lowered costs but they still aren't anywhere near those of the "true" low-cost counterparts. The label "low-cost" hasn't changed, but the assumption of who is and why has, IMO. I don't know why; perhaps its the evolution of the low-cost model?

I was curious to know what our CASM is and was, and they are (in cents):

2005 - 12.5
2004 - 11.4
2003 - 10.9
2002 - 12.6
2001 - 13.8
2000 - 14.1

Given the price of jet fuel, I think a rise is CASM is expected, especially with no fuel hedge as mentioned. What you are seeing now is, at least in North America, a race to add value or appeal (or lack of.. depending on how you look at it) to ones product. Westjet started as a bare bones operation with no frills whatsoever. Leather seats were chosen to reduce the costs of maintaining them; LiveTV was introduced to offer a competitive product when we started doing transcon flights; BOB product was introduced with the same idea - you can't keep people in an airplane for five hours and not expect them to get hungry; operating out of the worlds most expensive airport is an unavoidable cost given that Toronto is Canada's largest city. There are plenty of reasons for what we did and probably will do but there are always rhyme behind the reason... at least there usually is (with some mistakes along the way).