To imply that managers of the status of Willie Walsh would cavalierly put passengers at risk in the pursuit of profit seems quite a desperate attempt to boost the case for the prophets of doom. As someone once said, "If you think safety is expensive, try having an accident."
All flying involves a balance of risk but the accumulated wisdom and experience of many thousands of aviation professionals has made commercial aviation the incredibly safe experience it is today.
and
Er, only part right... Ensuring that their respective airlines don't have a high profile safety incident/accident, which sends passengers scurrying to another airline is also a very big part of their jobs.
I didn't say otherwise - maximising profits and publicity doesn't mean or imply running an unsafe airline - however they have people in their organisation who look after safety, so they can concentrate on commercial. MOL can say one thing (charge to use the toilet, moan about flying in ash), but historically does another (doesn't charge, doesn't fly in ash) However their priority is to make money, get publicity and increase passenger numbers and awareness. They're not going to do that by having a crash once a week and their safety teams and regulators will hold them in check, but equally they're not going to do that by just rolling over and ignoring business and customer pressures at times where risk increases!
I'm not criticising, however that is the nature of the beast!
Which I guess puts the focus onto the regulators, ICAO and manufacturers, with pressure and funding from the airlines, whos best interests would be served by more research!