Would you fly on an airplane that had a reputation for crashing? Me neither. Crashing airplanes is very, very bad for profits.
Would you bet your life that reputation alone was enough to keep an airliner from crashing? We know right now airlines shave every possible extra cost to achieve the lowest prices because passengers are very price sensitive.
Even more, right now a lot of people don't know they're flying on any number of regional airlines, some of which may have terrible reputations when they fly "United express" [1]. Consider that one of those airlines beating a passenger to get them off the plane didn't change the situation.
Of course, now we have safety standards rather than just reputation preventing crashes, which seems like the appropriate thing.
Please review the history of the DeHavilland Comet and the Lockheed Electra for what happened when an airliner acquired a reputation for being unsafe.
Wow, I'd have a variety of responses to this remarkable post.
Obviously, safety regulations should allow for the profitable production of planes and they clearly do, the rest should be up to the plane manufacturer. Now, profits as such aren't what creates jobs as such. Rather it's the productive use of capital - a patent troll making a mint creates zero jobs for example. Now, if a particular form of investment doesn't create jobs one place, it should be able to create them elsewhere. Guaranteeing profits in one sector has many pernicious effects, often including a lack of job growth rather than the reverse.
Just as much, the profit/safety equation is more complex than "more profits, more safety spending" (to say the least). For example, if safety regulations can always be ignored for profits, plane manufacturers will build less safe planes over time.
Finally, a management which responds to not being able to produce a new, unsafe design by making their present line of planes unsafe by "lowering standard" should be looking at jail time.