The point the previous poster made about pilots on the board is an important and sobering question. Whether anyone likes it or not the pilot group in an airline-followed closely by Engineering?maintenance have the most impact on safety.Errors there can mean a crash with loss of possibly hundreds of lives and enormous costs for the airline. But on how many major airlines is anyone from either fraternity (apologies ladies nothing meant by it) actually on the board.
A few years ago-slightly tongue in cheek I e-mailed Easyjet and said I might fly on them now they had introduced booked seats but were they really as safety conscious as they were cost conscious . Needless to say I got a great corporate speak reply, safety is our first and overirding priority , highest standards etc etc . To which i replied that was reassuring upto a point but if it was really so important why did their corporate profile of board members not actually ahve anyone whose repsonsibility was safety of flight -they were all accountants, marketers and lawyers.
How many others are like that-its not a dig at Ez but it does illustrate the current corporate mindset that as regards running the company flight operations are not seen that important when the outside mind would think those functions were the most important. Time to get a voice from the flight deck back at the boardroom table i think