I don't believe Emirates is "waiting for a hull loss" There is always going to be a tug of war between flight safety and the commercial departments in an airline. Safety cost money and that invariably eats into the bottom line.
The balance was good until the financial crisis started and pressure was put on
all departments within the airline to save money. Unfortunately the top management in flight operations saw an opportunity to cut costs by making flight crews work 20% more at no extra pay. An unpopular decision to say the least. Unfortunately this also results in increased fatigue and unsatisfactory rosters. The big question to be asked is, is it unsafe. Most experts would think so. A GCAA auditor recently told me that the regulator feels that anything above 70 hours a month starts to impose an exponential risk to safety. Who knows.
The GCAA are aware of all the issues and are trying to rectify them. But as the same GCAA inspector told me "They need more paperwork from us".
