Whizzjet
It would seem that the Scandinavians are just following EU Doctrine, i.e. 0.05 for driving and 0.02 for safety critical jobs. Mind you, those are the maximum allowable levels, any state is well within it's rights to have more strict levels. However, Norway is not an EU member, but is by and large following the same procedures. And anyone who has ever been to Norway or Sweden will tell you they are extremely strict and enforce the law to the letter. If you get caught driving in SE with even 0.02% the your drivers license is history for a minimum of 3 months + a fine and if you're drunk enough, you'll end up in jail. That is the law of the land, and if you have a problem with then you're better off staying away.
And now for something that'll really get me in deep problems with some crew members of UK origin. Every airline staff member in the world who's ever had the pleasure of spending a night in the same hotel as a UK crew, especially BA, will tell you that they love their landing beers. In fact, they love landing beer and socialsing with their fellow crewmembers so much that they're regularly the last ones to leave the bar. Early morning reporting or not, they stay up very late. Not all of them of course, but the last crews to leave any hotel bar will enevitably be UK, and usually BA. I don't know what kind of culture promotes kicking it back all night, but it is there. Some will deny this to all and sundry, and they will also be the one's cooking up excuses for crews caught on camera with pathetic thesis like "it could've been light beer" and "the presenter said they had 10 beers, but I only counted 8" and so on and so forth. Denial is ripe with BA, sadly even amongst peers on a public forum like this. Before BA seriously addresses these issues, even to the extent of issuing a decrete stating that a landing beer or a glass of wine for dinner is acceptable, and nothing more, and introduce measures to enforce such rules, the problem will not go away. Maybe it's got to do with the British mentality, maybe it's a heritage thing. But flying and alcohol does not go together, pure and simple. You are trusted with people's life and millions worth of hardware, have to memorize very technical and complex systems and procedures, have to read through and understand technical documents, yet some claim that simple rules like staying off the bottle the night before a flight are too difficult to work with. Frankly, how you expect anyone to fall for that is beyond me.
I'm all for having a landing beer, or even two. It's all about professionalism and a respect for the jobs we hold, and knowing when to call it a day. The initial test of the FO from this latest incident, revealed an estimated alcohol content of 0.09%. That means he would have been more than just a little dizzy on the night, and should have known damn well he wouldn't be fit for duty the next day. Someone here stated that it could have been solved by the BA rep. quitely suggesting them to call in sick. No, no and yet again no. If the crew themselves are too stupid to call in sick, then they display an extremely poor sense of judgement. The aviation industry is better off without such individuals.
All over this industry you'll find people telling you to consider carefully before booking an early morning departure with BA from an out-station. You think there could be a reason for that?