The problem is that RPT air travel is so safe that most carriers ( with a few notorious exceptions) look much the same regarding safety to the average person. The inflight experience is much the same. The schedules are much the same. This has left price as a key discriminator for a large section of the market.
In this environment airlines must compete on price. The growth in LCC is evidence of this. Legacy airlines are cutting costs where they can. Using offshore cabin crew, offshoring maintenance and eroding existing terms and conditions are examples of this.
I suspect some managers are concerned about degraded pilot skills. But they are between a rock and a hard place. There is no point being safe if you are out of business. Other managers do not understand and will not listen.
And so everyone is playing the odds. Air travel is still pretty safe even with a few corners cut. The planes and the wider system are safer than before. And hopefully this will be enough. And it almost always is.
In the event of a disaster, various conventions will serve to limit liability. And the causes will be sufficiently complex that the blame and costs will be shared. That's how the risk managers and lawyers view it.
Market forces at predicated on an informed market. This is not the case here.
It would be great if the insurers sent a price signal. They likely do up to a point, but only up to a point. Insurance is most efficient with a frequent number of smal claims ( auto accidents or heart attacks). The high frequency allows accurate determination of risk. That is not the case with infrequent catastrophic claims. Insurers manage these through exclusions (acts of God, war etc) and also through reinsurance.
With airlines, crashes are rare and so insurers have difficulty determiniing the risk to apply. AF however may have now had a sufficiently bad run that the insurers will see hem as high risk.
If premiums really offset savings from corners cut, then LCC wouldn't be growing as they are.