Just before everyone provides every link to the articles, do yourselves a favour and just go to the
Google News website and type 'easyjet' into the search field and hey presto, you will have links to every report published on the internet in chronological order.
Whilst the subject is one that obviously makes many of us uncomfortable and it was first revealed exclusively here on PPRuNe, almost eight hours before easyJet made an announcement, it serves little purpose to try and shoot the messenger. Obviously, easyJet have known about this incident since Saturday and it would appear that they have had their hand forced by the rumour that was first posted here.
What we should be avoiding is petty ideas about breath testing before every flight. I personally would find it offensive if my employer didn't trust me to turn up to work drug and alcohol free. The sensationalism used by the media in an attempt to highlight their fantasy that because of two recent court cases and now todays new revelation as somehow being indicative of a 'problem' is obviously just the news editors way of generating interest in their stories.
Can anyone provide any idea on the number of all commercial passenger flights originating in the UK and also flights operated by UK pilots worldwide per annum? The two cases that went to court recently were over incidents that occurred long before the court cases themselves. How many incidents of this kind have we had in the last 12 months? How many flights are we talking about? Do the maths and at least show yourselves to be slightly more intelligent than the subnormal luvvies and drama queens who make out that this is some kind of a huge problem. It is just the media luvvies making mountains out of molehills.
Every case where it is highlighted that a pilot has been caught over the limit is bad news and the media love to have a go at pilots because in reality they do probably envy our supposedly glamorous jobs and lifestyles. For those of us in the 'know' we can just roll our eyes and confirm to ourselves that those media luvvies really do live in a fantasy world. What we need to be sure of, and I'm sure that the vast majority of us are responsible enough to make sure that we will never become one of those who break the rules and bring the medias attention to this miniscule problem.
We all know that if we are impaired in any way, in fact we are not even supposed to work when we have even a simple common cold, then we call in sick. Those who may be under the weather because of alcohol consumption are able to exercise their right to call in sick too. Their own shame and guilt in knowing that they probably shouldn't have imbibed so much at the time is often enough to prevent it happening again. In this particular case, and I am speculating right now, it would appear that the authorities were tipped off by someone. Is that right or wrong? With random screening there is no guarantee that a pilot over the limit would be caught because the numbers are in fact so miniscule. Draw your own conclusions about the methods used to single this particular pilot out.
In conclusion, this incident was first reported here on PPRuNe. That in itself appears to have forced easyJets hand in admitting publicly that the incident in fact was true. You can't keep something like this a secret, no matter how embarrassing it may be to a company and to the huge majority of us in the profession. At least we can discuss it and show the media luvvies that we are aware that a tiny proportion of our colleagues will have human failings. What we shouldn't be doing is giving the media ammunition with stupid suggestions that we should just be tested before every flight. They're just story tellers, we're not... at least I hope that we can discuss this as fellow professionals without descending to the medias gutter levels.