How automated tests cut our support tickets by 40%

When I joined Inflight Dublin, tests were something you wrote if you had time. Nobody had time. Instead of mandating coverage numbers, we changed the default: CI wouldn't merge untested changes, and we made the first test in each module easy by wiring the harnesses ourselves. The activation energy dropped to nearly zero. Client tickets fell 40%. Not because engineers got better overnight — because the same bugs stopped shipping twice. Culture change beats policy change. Make the right thing the easy thing.