''Any commercially savvy outfit will fly as they have to. Ryaniar are just such an outfit. They have nothing to answer to save the fact that they operate within the bounds of current legislation and the laws of morality!''
And they will explore and exploit any opportunity to reduce the minimums and reduce costs. This treatment of the limits as a target is enforced on the Captains against their better judgement and experience, by fuel tables and "chats" (without tea and biscuits) in the office.
The result is that to stay "competitive", other operations do the same and now we have a number of aircraft all approaching an airport at the same time with bad weather - all who are on minimums and have to declare an emergency to be safe when the more sensible would have been to carry more fuel. However, the Captains are afraid to do this.
We have seen the limits of the system stretched in this incident. If nothing is done to regulate this policy, the probable result will be an aircraft having to put down somehwere at other than an airfield with a high likelhood of loss of life.