Joe Co, you state
"I can't believe how bad the industry is crumbling!! The thing is that this is probably the safest time to fly in the history of aviation, but the general public are just to dense to see that!!!!!"
As a humble pax (& private pilot, but that's of no consequence here) I would like to say that, yes, there is a "dense" element to the general public, but there's also some practical aspects and considerations to this whole sorry mess.
Post 911, anyone who WASNT dense would foresee the media circus and general panic-rousing that would go on. Indeed, these forums here were full of dire predictions about airlines almost within hours of that awful event.
Follow it through.... if I'm planning on sept 12th to buy airline tickets to XXX for a holiday, and if I'm not dense, I'll be worried primarily about whether the ticket I'd be buying would be worth a bean by the time I come to take a trip (ie the airline goes bust and I'm left with a scrap of paper in my hand).
Another aspect of this (it seems) is that airlines were in pretty bad shape generally speaking before the 911, and that there has arguably been a degree of cynical exploitation of the situation by the beancounters to justify radical restructuring of large, overweight corporate organisations. This isnt only happening in the airline industry.
As a final & somewhat cynical observation, I rather got the impression (working in the IT industry as I do) that a very large proportion of international business trips were effectively junkets and rewards for execs.
Technology & communications advances had already started the beancounters wondering why the heck everyone was flying around everywhere when they'd just invested in worldwide communications technologies. 911 has just brought all these aspects into conjunction and made everyone stop & re-evaluate.
....and god, I really do feel for you guys right now, honestly. if its any comfort at all, (well its cold comfort really) then my sector of IT has been hit very badly too, and my job prospects are not looking good post Xmas.
It seems that the terrorists have indeed achieved far, far more than the direct physical damage that they inflicted - but they have been assisted indirectly by the short-term, reactive, beancounting approach of company execs & corporate environments the world over. These people do not represent countries, principles, the value of people or democracies - they represent economic greed, selfishness, the balance sheets, the stock value & shortsightedness.