All of that said, and this won't be popular, there is a lot of dead wood on the front line. That should be pruned too, but it's protected by union contracts, seniority and the like. Too bad job cuts in those ranks can't be done based on job performance like it is done in management ranks.
I know that I survived several rounds of job cuts in my old department, and for years I was the most junior person there. That's because I busted my butt and did a better job taking care of my customers and had higher productivity than people who were senior to me.
Throw seniority out the window and put that in place in airports, maintenance, inflight, res and flight and see how that shakes things up!