etrang I'm going to have to add my two cents here as senior crew for a certain loco airline.
I don't know of any airline who's mantra is "safety if the only thing we care about" although I could stand corrected on this. However in the UK at least it is
the number one priority for all carriers and therein lies the difference in your perceptions and reality.
My lot also care passionatly about on time performance as it costs money if we are late. However I can confidently say there is no and I repeat no pilot who would accept an aircraft for a flight if he had concerns re a technical issue. We would stay on the ground until it is sorted so safety takes priority over our on time performance.
Profit per seat is right up there for any airline nowadays not just the loco's. As crew we are constantly bombarded by various sales incentives from management and many of them involve alcohol. Crew also earn a lot of commision from the sale of alcohol.
If the Friday night Ibiza appears on our roster we know the spend per head and therefore the company's profit per seat is likely to be high as this flight has a particular pax profile.
However if any problems kick off safety takes priority over this. If we have problems on boarding the offenders get off so the company profit per seat is then tranferred elsewhere in the interests of flight safety. If we have problems during flight we stop selling alcohol (which is one of a number of measures at our disposal) so again safety takes priority. I'm sure
ATS and
Tightslot would concur that is the approach of all UK airlines. I'm referring to the UK as I don't have experience outside of this.
I hope that reassures you. Safety is and always will be the
number one priority when flying end of
