How about having a beer with dinner on your layover rather than 6 beers

Yeah, those darn regional punks. You're right though, it's not clearly exciting as a couple of pilots falling asleep while flying from San Diego to Minny, or as exciting as landing on a taxiway, or as exciting as the CA still using the tiller while on the runway, battling his FO and veering their plane off the runway in Denver...

I think the PERSON should be taking the heat.
I'm sure that both the contractor, and the parent company, both did everything they could do to put policies into place, showed them all the right films, provided all the different courses and counselors to people if they had problems, etc....... AND STILL a certain person decided to break all of the regs/guidelines/procedures/ and laws to fly drunk (if this is actually the case)
How about we blame this person's parents too while we're at it for not raising him properly?

Personal responsibility is dead.

FlyJSH - you are correct, yet I thought a reason the lawyers usually went after the contracting company was because they generally went after whoever had the deepest pockets - and that is usually the parent company.

USMCFLYR

USMC is spot on. Let each person take responsibility for their idiotic actions. First...The media loves to sensationalize these stories. I highly doubt he was truly DRUNK. Pilots who have been "drunk" in the past have had a BAC of like .02-.04 (typically, not all). Thats hardly DRUNK in the Animal House sense of the word. Second....as I was saying, USMC is spot on. Us regional guys and the mainline guys don't want mainline having to bear the liability for this. Theyll reduce or eliminate their liability in anyway possible if theyre forced to be responsible for this. Do you really want to take a brethalyzer everytime you walk down the jetway?

If this stuff keeps up, airlines' are just going to ban us from drinking, as a condition of employment.

On March 8, 1990, a Northwest flight flew from Fargo, North Dakota, to Minneapolis with the entire cockpit crew legally drunk. All three pilots were subsequently fired and had their licenses revoked by the FAA

FlyingDrunk.com

A good read about loosing it all and somehow getting it all back. I was in a crashpad with Joe, a real great guy and a hell of a drummer.

6 beers IS dinner...duh!!

Joe still keep in touch with the rest of the crew? I heard the FO is a captain at Polar.

I am all for personal responsibility. However, having United's name in the headline is completely appropriate.

Yeah, they need to be held publicly accountable for the failings of their subcontractors since, IMO, UAL and other majors intentionally try to lead their customers to the conclusion that they are flying on a mainline airplane.

Although in the cases of drunk on duty, I don't think regional pilots are necessarily worse than mainline pilots.