JohnR
I've thought carefully about what you said there,
1) Safety is not the airline's 'number one priority'. That's returning value to its shareholders. It is hopefully the number one priority of any crew, but not the airline's.
Actually, it is indeed the overriding priority for the organisation (airline) as a whole to place safety of the operation at the fore, and as an ex-postholder with said airline, I can tell you from the MD down ensuring a safe operation is the number one business priority, after that comes pleasing the shareholders. Fail to ensure a safe operation and you compromise shareholder value so it must be the business's first priority. Of course on the day, the crew's places the safety of passengers and crew and operation of the aircraft as the number one priority, as clearly they did. But the organisation behind the them; maintenance, flight ops, etc. the finance that supports it all, if you were to ask anyone of them where the airline's first responsibilities lie, you're going to get a 'safe' operation as their first answer. Have to disagree with your take on that one.