Every time there's a "fare war", every time people spend that extra three hours to dig up a $30 savings on their flight--they inadvertently set their own standard for the economy of safety, and consequently accept the risks involved whether they like it or not.
It isn't as though it takes a mental giant to put it together that their savings must be coming off the back end somewhere.
When carriers start spreading it thin, they're looking to do it in areas of service that are least likely to be noticed by the average passenger, and one of those areas is maintenance.
I wish people would either start putting their money where their mouths go, or stop blubbering about the risks to their precious lives. The risk is (it would seem) perfectly acceptable--so long as they get to drag their miserly carcasses off the jetway on the other end.