All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection, except for the problem of too many layers of indirection.

The idea of having multiple layers is to make foul play more difficult to cover up; i.e the chances of someone screwing up grows exponentially with every person you add.

That assumes that every person you add has the ability to understand all the details plus is actually willing to do their best to find any remaining issues. Somehow this doesn't match up with my real world experience. It also assumes that convoluted rules will hinder larger companies from exploiting the rules, which is actually the other way around: The larger they are, the better they get at finding loopholes and using them for their own gains. Plus you make it increasingly more difficult to see where your regulatory body has been compromised.

Humans don't work like tech, so adding more and more layers doesn't help really, and I haven't found any organizational form which can inherently prevent humans from being human, it just doesn't exist. For example, all the "paperwork" around safety only works if humans are actually interested in maximizing safety and not just filling out papers.

That's labor intensive. You could always set a threshold.. where if more than X% of your flights are canceled due to safety issues in any month, your maintenance operation gets fully audited.

No, I would remove the exception and put up even heftier fines (i.e. costs more than the (partial) refunding) for safety violations. There should be structures and procedures for that in place already and you avoid creating even more bureacraziness with all the problems that brings.

Good point. disincentivize Lax maintenance even more, airlines should want their planes to be in good condition

That just incentivizes better lying, not better safety. These rules have been written in blood many times over.

You mean better lying than they already do by reclassifying everything as a "safety issue" to avoid paying out customers because they skipped on a lot of things already to increase "shareholder value" or other such garbage?

I just hope they don't drain additional time & people to check into each of these "safety issues" now, thinning out the crowd who will also check into actual incidents ...

Who is on the regulatory body that reviews these cases? Probably friends of the airline industry.