And as long as Joe Public gets cheap airfare and the statistics ain't to bad he's a happy camper
Unfortunately, this is how it works. Governments and corporations have "risk management" specialists that calculate what is cheaper, take some risks and pay for screw-ups this much with such and such probability, or pay for not taking those risks X amount of money.
When I lived in the US, there was this constant propaganda of how excessive damages awarded by courts are a drag on companies. But, the other side of the coin is that this is that such damages push those risk-management calculations toward more sanity. A pilot/engineer/production manager being pushed to do stupid things by management can then testify in court to that effect and get a part of the damages in the process, and this protects him far more than any governmental regulations.
Without it, there would be much more of the low-cost risks everywhere. So, maybe there is some value to that so called "sue-happy" society.
