I'm from the UK and flew Virgin America for the first time last month from Orlando to SF for $120 (a 5 hour flight) and thought it was amazing value.
Flying from London 5 hours in any direction costs around 4/5 times more for airlines that have a significantly worse experience than Virgin America.
But saying that I booked a flight to LA a few days ago and picked Southwest because it was $50 cheaper than VA and if the Florida flight would have been $50 cheaper on Southwest I would have gone with them too.
The way I see it is that I can deal with slightly less comfort on a flight if it means I save enough money to buy myself something like a new pair of Converse when I land.
I thought if you flew in or out of London the UK government subsidized the flight costs significantly, as a form of economic stimulus.
Hence Ryan Air has $14 pound flights to Berlin, and stuff like that. (been awhile since we lived in europe, so I could be out of date.)
At my age, and 20 years of flying on Southwest, if I ever got a chance to fly Virgin and it was $50 more, I'd pick Virgin. Historically Southwest has been my favorite airline and most flown airline, but I'm getting too old for the cattle car.
Seriously, the UK government does not give any money to Ryanair. Some local airports and tourist boards negotiate deals with them, but these are typically for marketing expenses and lowering of gate fees.
Its interesting that the major low cost American airline is famed for customer service, while the major low cost European airline (in fact, the biggest passenger airline in Europe) is also famed for (negative) customer service.
Typically the 14 pound flights are either terrible times or on a Tuesday, which tends to be the cheapest day to fly. Source - I've spent way too much time on the Ryanair website.
Flying from London 5 hours in any direction costs around 4/5 times more for airlines that have a significantly worse experience than Virgin America.
But saying that I booked a flight to LA a few days ago and picked Southwest because it was $50 cheaper than VA and if the Florida flight would have been $50 cheaper on Southwest I would have gone with them too.
The way I see it is that I can deal with slightly less comfort on a flight if it means I save enough money to buy myself something like a new pair of Converse when I land.