As a punter (SLF), I would not normally post in a pilot thread, but an important aspect of all this is the perspective of paying passengers. De Rangi suggested that passengers would keep going to the cheapest counter, even if there were a high profile accident. Some people might, but I think a lot would not. But should we wait until people are killed before making public the concerns that professional flight crews have over safety?
Because I read PPrune, I am aware that questions (whether true or not) are continually raised over safety at certain LCC's, and as I have nothing else to base my judgements on, I choose to never fly with certain airlines, no matter how cheap. That is my personal choice. The general public, however, assume that the highest safety standards are always applied even at LCC's, and they have precious little information to tell them otherwise.
If there are real safety problems within European avaiation, I and any other frequent flyers I know would absolutely definitely want flight crews to speak up.
The reason people use cheap airlines is they are guided by the "long documented" concept of "if they were unsafe, they wouldn't let them fly, would they". That is what most passengers know and firmly believe, and nobody is telling them otherwise.