I'm a PAX of 49 years sitting.
PJ2 <extract>
... in my opinion having seen enough of it, this kind of tolerance comes from the bureacracy of management where the politics of advancement and advantage seem to be more important than knowing about one's real job, which is ensuring a minimum standard of behaviour including an ethical standard and duty to those behind the cockpit door
I have seen this in many walks of life but the kind where the chairs are already at ground level. In commerce, we no longer see a manager who has 'worked their way up'. When I took a Saturday job (aged 16) the manager of the department store told me that he had started by working Saturdays when he was 16. That no longer happens in ANY business. The univeristy is now seen as the golden steps and the only way to climb.
Huck quoted framer:
I read it as a plea to "straighten up and fly right even though we have failed to establish a positive safety culture and have allowed you to bust SOP's for years, failed to reign in the outlying cowboys, failed to empower the disciplined amongst you, and watched as human nature did it's thing and a large majority of you bowed to the pressure exerted to get the job done"
Huck You just described the management culture of the majority of american airlines....
Unfortunately, framer just described the management culture of almost every company I have known during 35 years of a working life. (Mainly in telecommunications and IT and with American companies and having worked internationally.) Nowadays, everyone aims to do the minimum and get the maximum out of it.
One simple example. One of my managers told me to cut all the maintenance contracts on a particular type of equipment. They said, "They're reliable and it's cheaper just to fix it when it goes wrong." I know that is not a direct comparison and that IT equipment was safely on the ground when it failed but that attitude has continued. I was told that in 1989 by an American Vice President of the company.
Someone has mentioned Fear Is The Hunter, don't forget to tell the boy pilots to read: The Tombstone Imperative: The Truth about Air Safety by Andrew Weir because every thread like this in PPRuNe could be out of that book. I'll get back to my seat now and shut up.