Whoops - I wasn't intending to start a slanging match between EZ and BA drivers...!
By the way, I didn't mention Ryanair in my comparison because my experience, especially on punctuality, is so crappy - they're not a credible alternative to BA at any price, in my view! EZ, however, is strongly pitching for business pax, and based on my recent experience, succeeding.
The CAT 1 vs. CAT 3 thing is important. I remember arriving a foggy day late for a meeting in Istanbul a few years back thanks to the cheapo spec of the THY plane I was booked on!
I also think that the BA SESMA system is a great safety addition - it really should be standard airline kit IMHO. But most pax, of course, have no clue that this system doesn't exist among the low cost carriers!
The problem is that, as has been pointed out in this forum before, passengers are bad at pricing safety except in extreme cases (e.g. avoiding dodgy former Soviet and African airlines). BA vs BM vs EZ vs GO? Who cares. In most passengers' minds, their safety is underwritten by the CAA, and that's good enough for them. If the CAA says it's safe enough to fly, then pax just go ahead and worry about price differences.
The other problem is that unlike in say, the automotive sector, it's very hard for airlines to market themselves on safety. If a hubristic BA tried to market itself against EZ by taking a Volvo versus Daewoo approach - e.g. "Fly BA - consistently among the world's safest airlines!" - imagine the embarrassment when the first serious incident took place.
So, as you can't really market safety, it's not clear that being safer than the rest of the pack pays in aviation... which I suppose is one reason why improvements airline safety are usually the results of major disasters, rather than "continuous improvement" to borrow from management-speak. That sounds depressing, and it is - am I beginning to sound like an airline manager yet?!