Drinking and Flying on Both Sides of the Flight Deck

With another arrest of a "drunk" pilot, this time a United Captain on a flight from LHR bound for ORD, should passengers be worried about their safety in the skies? The LA Times featured an interesting discussion of pilot sobriety yesterday which highlighted-

3 arrests ex-LHR of U.S. pilots for "drunkeness" the last 13 months. Perhaps this is due to the UK´s blood-alcohol-maximum of 0.02. One beer is theoretically enough to knock you out.
The FAA has no enforcement mechanism-it is up to co-workers and passengers to find "bad apples."
This leads to a lot of passengers crying wolf, especially after recent incidents are reported in the news.
Pilots with alcohol problems can voluntarily step down, enter alcohol rehab, and usually be back on the job within a year.
90% of pilots who participate in the rehab program return to work.

No breaking news here (and I´m not about to suggest that ANON meetings be held in the UA Pilot´s lounge in ORD). If I notice a pilot is drunk, I will report him, but I think the notion that passengers on the recent UA LHR-ORD flight were put into severe danger is ridiculous, after all there would have been two more pilots in the flight deck. Just so long as they didn´t go out drinking toghether I suppose…

I shouldn´t joke, because this issue is serious, but please do not boycott UA or forgo flying because of an occasional pilot who may have had a beer before the flight. Flying is still the safest way to get from point A to point B. Pilots should severally punished for showing up with a high BAC level, but instances of pilot of drunkeness are so rare (that´s why it makes headlines when it happens) that I would not even give it a second thought next time you fly.