However, colleagues claimed he had a longstanding drinking problem that saw him down one-litre entire bottles of vodka a night.
This behaviour is completely unacceptable and not what we expect from our highly professional fleet of pilots.
Quotes from the DM need to be used with care, but if these are correct it seems even BA are ignorant about drug addiction, seeing an alcoholic as a criminal as opposed to a patient with a mental illness who needs treatment. Until employers and the law recognise mental illness as illness we will continue to incarcerate addicts, schitzophrenics etc labeling them as bad. If this pilot had keeled over with a heart attack there would have been sympathy and support for his incapacitation. Because the illness is above then neck he is a criminal. There is a lot of education to be done....