Astrodome,
Many thanks for a clear and informative reply. Perhaps J.T. could follow your lead.
Now: I agree that the whole issue has been mishandled so incompentently. It beggars belief, especially considering the industry we are talking about. Where everything is measured and operated to limits, here is a critical area, when workers' livelyhoods are at stake, where it is airey fairey. Amazing.
I agree with the sentiment that if you have a doubt about your fitness to fly, there maybe a deeper problem that needs addressing. However, if you are in doubt what are your options? There is a blank space here. Should crew rooms have breath-test machines? Should crews have their own? But where do you buy one that is certified? And if you do use that to check yourself, and prove OK, but subsequently at an airport where random checks may apply, you may fall foul of the 'official' tester. Would you have a right to sue the provider of your personal equipment?
Is this limit of 20mg worldwide? Where are its areas of implication? Considering the consequences of this extremly low limit the lack of information and guidance on the whole matter is deplorable.
It does seem an inconsistancy that you could be driven to work, safely in the opinion of rosters, along the busy rush hour roads, for perhaps 3 hours, by a taxi driver who has 400% legally more alcohol in their blood than you, while in control of a rapidly moving hand controlled vehicle in close formation with other similarly 'impaired' road users. This is deemed OK. But for you, under the same or 50% of that limit, to take an autopilot controlled a/c into the relatively empty sky is deemed unsafe.
Have all JAA states adopted this limit? And what about the non-JAA states?
And if the governments have introduced this limit so easily without consultation and balancing discussion, what would happen if they decided that random testing should became the norm?
What is the ECA's, if it still exisits, opinion on this? Surely this is a matter for which unions exist? To discuss such matters.
It's a real buggar's muddle.