Am I alone in finding it additionally irritating that all the tabloid coverage has focused so heavily on the fact that this pilot is female?
Why should this surprise you?
One has only see the ratio of male pilots to female pilots in Easyjet & elsewhere in aviation for that matter to understand why the press thinks it will grab more public attention, its a rarer occurence, after all so many male pilots have been found p*ssed or allegedly recently p*ssed at the controls or about to take control it's a bit old hat. Unusual different stories sell papers, I know when I was on the tube the other day I was as guily of this as anyone else. When I saw the headlines 'female pilot found drunk' or whatever my curiosity became so insurmountable I ended up reading a strangers paper while she was reading it much to my colleagues embarassment.
Of course the press will emphasise the novelty of it being a member of the fairer sex in this case and of course the public are interested in this fact. One may not like it but one can't change human nature and public preceptions. Of course she was going to be thrown to the sharks & IMHO if shes guilty she deserves to be as much as her male colleagues.
Personally I'm fed up with the drink culture that appears to exist among pilots. When I get into a plane I am putting my life in these so called responsible peoples hand, the concern whether they've recently hit the bottle or not & are fully sober should not need to be there. Personally I think she and any other pilot who takes the controls without observing the bottle to throttle limit are a disgrace to themselves, their company & profession and do not deserve to wear the stripes they do on their sleeves.
