Originally Posted by
EIFFS
The only thing that would likely see the company in serious difficulty would be a series of high profile high casualty accidents that pointed to safety failings on their part and that simply isn’t going to happen...
If that is the assumption on which FR is operating, they're dancing on the edge of a volcano. Goodwill never matters until one actually needs it. It won't take a series of serious accidents to leave this airline in deep trouble. One would be sufficient. By this point, its
responsables have made so many injudicious, if not positively inflammatory, public statements indicating their undisguised disdain for the regulatory authorities and the rule of law that the most inept counsel for the plaintiffs would find it impossible not to have a field day in court. Any monetary verdict would pale beside the media barrage demanding that FR be subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny by aviation administrations in its ongoing operations, in light of that same demonstrated contempt for external scrutiny and accountability. And if FR's directors express themselves in the manner they already have in public, we may be certain that some truly explosive material is to be found in their internal documents, awaiting an order for discovery by a civil court.
Telling sovereign governments to go to hell is never a wise business strategy. I fancy that FR will be taught that lesson the hard way, in all likelihood sooner rather than later. When one side has (i) men and women with guns and handcuffs; (ii) jails; and (iii) unlimited financial resources, and the other has none of those things, confrontations between them tend to conclude in only one way.