Every time I hear an airline executive utter the words "safety is out number one priority", I cringe. Most don't care at all about anything other than their own careers - they want the bonuses and salaries and little else. Therein lies the problem - as long as they can circumvent rules and regulations well enough to stay out of prison while increasing profits and thus their bonus, then they will congratulate themselves on a job well done with no interest in the long term future of the business or its staff and customers.
What is needed is for legislation to be invoked that links salaries and bonuses of executives to the long-term performance and safety of whatever business they're in. It needs to be legislative because few executives will do this voluntarily. There are interesting statistics on the psychological makeup of of certain jobs, psychopathy being a worrying norm in certain roles. The worst on the list, unsurprisingly, were bankers/traders, followed by executives. They cannot be persuaded to look after the long term interests of others - it has to be forced on them.
I can't disagree with anything AirRabbit has written, but sadly I think hoping for enlightened airline management is fantasy because of the nature of the people involved.