To me the underlined sentence basically says we cannot be bothered doing this now as it is too costly ,inconvenient and time consuming.
It certainly would have been bloody "costly and inconvenient" if the aircraft was in fact damaged and had an inflight structual failure on the next flight, or the one after that wouldnt it??
If the next 2 or 3 assigned crews reading that write up in the maintenance log had refused to fly the plane until the full inspection was done it would have been gotten done asap right?????
The time and equipment would have been found or they park the jet if no tech crew will fly it.
No airline is perfect and of course, everyone makes mistakes at some point too but the regulator needs to do their job and regulate and oversee the operators no matter who they are or how big or small they are.
Operator self regulation when tens of millions of dollars are at stake to be made or saved by cutting corners will never work in the real world .
Ultimately peoples lives are at stake, and 1 serious fatal accident/disaster will do exponentially far more damage and cost more than any penny pinching effort to save a buck here and there.
Most pilots and engineers know this and yet airline risk management experts appear not too and are happy to gamble on the odds always being in their favour.
However beyond the ALAEA versus Qantas and CASA matters is the overriding issue of safety standards enforcement in Australia. Australia failed critical elements of an ICAO audit of safety oversight earlier this year,
and has wide ranging remedial action to complete by the end of the year or
risk being consigned to the same failed state status when it comes to
aviation as Indonesia and Yemen.
Under these circumstances air travellers have every reason to treat with
caution airline and regulator platitudes about their exemplary safety
standards whether made in reaction to union or public concerns.
Very true, lets see how CASA shapes up in the next 6 months and if they pass the next audit.