The airlines were all playing Russian Roulette - not just Malasian
The people on that aircraft were badly let down. Not only by the lunatic in East Ukraine who pulled the trigger, but by the airline industry. It could have been ANY airlines aircraft... It could have been ANY of us...
All airlines say that safety is their number one priority. Flying over or to/from war zones could scarcely be more clear cut.
It took a long time to close southern Ukrainian airspace, following the Russian invasion. To begin with the Ukrainians controlled the airspace from a different control centre and pretended everything was normal down below. The airlines lapped it up because it meant keeping direct routings open, to and from Europe.
The airlines should have been proactive - it was nothing less than their duty, but they weren't - in the case of Simferopol but also elsewhere in Ukraine. It needed common sense and a bit less greed. The threat was so obvious.