Scary thought, but you’re quite right. I don’t think the budget airline industry can or should be sustained, even though I’ve so often used it myself and will continue to do so … but environmentally it’s just so wrong.
But to answer your question … I flew from Tallinn to Berlin for something like 12 Euros a couple of years ago. The flight itself was just 1 Euro. I was taking my Mum travelling and she couldn’t believe it was possible .

Darren I think my cheapest flight was from Glasgow Prestwick to Bergamo for £17 return. I paid more to park my car at Prestwick when I was away.

Sardinia is supposed to be beautiful so I hope you booked the ticket?

I’m sure you’ll enjoy Sardinia, Darren and glad to hear IT problems all sorted

I traveled from London to Brussels return for 25 pence + tax. Was traveling on to Barcelona. So had to fly back from Brussels to London and then on to Barcelona for another 25 pence return. Than went on to Rome. So, back to London for another 25 pence + tax ticket to Rome. I did have to purchase the tickets a couple of months in advance and had to travel on certain days, but quite frankly for the price it was fine. This was about 3 years ago. I hope Ryanair has a long and happy life.

I love those bargain flights. We’ve used them to get around different places in Europe; I particularly like that you can use them to get between smaller airports.
I seriously doubt that they will be able to continue to offer such bargains, unless they can get some great advertisers in/on their planes.

@ Darren, re your comment near the top there … yes there are some budget airlines making moves in Australia, but the concept of “budget” is different here. The distances are just too far and there aren’t enough passengers to get the real bargains that you can find in Europe. It’s definitely getting better though, especially for hopping around the east coast (like Melbourne to Sydney). But give me Europe’s system any day.

I think that with oil price so high and environmental taxes coming in, airfares will have to rise. Probably before 2012. There are a few things that can keep it down like subjecting passengers to more advertising.
See also:
http://jetvine.blogspot.com/2007/12/holland-eco-tax-not-hit-with-airlines.html
http://jetvine.blogspot.com/2008/03/oil-price-breaches-105-barrel.html

Darren

Cheapest flight I booked was virgin blue just AUS25 from melbourne to sydney. But thing to remember is low cost carriers use loss leaders. The day they went on sale I went in to book a easyjet flight to malaga and it was £120 each way, it was however school holidays.

No it will not stamp out the low cost guys despite the attempts by various groups and governments to extinguish them.
If you look at the real yield of any acrft (say a 737) on a given flight (and yes I agree aside from the loss leaders) you would find that it is producing quite satisfactory revenues because whilst you, being a clever traveller, have booked for 99 pence six weeks previously, the guy sitting next to you probably paid £150 and the guy at the back may have paid £250 because he arrived this morning due to an urgent travel requirement.
Also they do not have the heavy overpaid group of management that the Nationals have.
They also make up for it with coaches, carparking, baggage charges etc. They are also reliant on a newish phenomenon; aircraft reliability so that they can work their aircraft hard. It is only in the last few years that the Nationals decided that having three standby aircraft for every working one (same applies to staff) was not essential.
As I write this I am seeing the news that terminal 5 is producing the same chaos that is considered normal in UK. (What lunatic arranged that the terminal design allowed domestic passengers to mix with internationals. And no wheelchair access and the greatest insanity is to build it at Heathrow. Surely Norman Foster (Sorry SIR Norman Foster) could have been persuaded to erect anoth couple of barns at Stansted which also has the space to build more runways (yes I have had a drink in the pub that will have to be knocked down and yes I have wondered why Hatfield Forest would all die due to gallons of kerosene being dumped all over it whereas the lady who grows flowers in her garden at the end of the runway at heathrow finds her flower and shrubs all thrive) Its lovely to hear the smooth voice on TV saying what a wonderful and beautiful building terminal five is, whilst the cameraman is trying to film the spokesman without getting the angry group of disgruntled travellers in the frame.
A last thought. Why is it that the UK is the only country that persists in baggage trolleys with all four wheels castoring. Fix the rear two and it becomes steerable and saves have to wrench it about on any kind of slope.
Happy travelling

We recently saw a sleuth of $1, $0.05 flights being offered in Aus. It is a bit dodgy because although they advertise the flights, they dont advertise the dates. But still, the trend seem to point to cheaper flights so far. Still, I agree with airport tax being more and more ridiculous