Mike, Mme Hamster is calling me to bed, but to conclude...
This is because (in a nutshell):
The pilots and unions don't run the airlines.
The managers do run the airlines and are only concerned with making value for shareholders whilst achieving compliance with regulation.
The regulator works down to compliance, not up to excellence, and without any test for what we might call professional reasonableness.
The fare-paying public don't know, and probably, after the spin-doctors had had their input, wouldn't care, what's going on.
Modern aviation is incredibly 'safe' even done to what I would see to be a shockingly low standard.
I don't want to labour the point, but This nightmare is only real because idiots will pay to do a job which professionals have been paid to do for years Just what the long-term consequences are, doesn't bear thinking about.