Wait, Airline Has Been Letting Passengers Drink Their Own Alcohol They Buy At Duty Free? [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • Odd FBI ads in Russian at New York JFK airport

  • Wait, Air India has allowed passengers to drink their own alcohol they buy at duty free until now?

    Air India is to ban passengers from drinking their own alcohol during international flights that they have bought at airport Duty Free stores in a bid to reduce disruptive behaviour following a spate of unruly passenger incidents.

    The drinking ban is part of a new alcohol policy that has been rushed in following the now-infamous ‘pee-gate’ incident in which a drunken Business Class passenger urinated over an elderly passenger.

  • I saw this and my first thought was ‘they’re bringing back the 747?’ And then I thought, ‘well with the U.K.’s decline I guess their version of Queen of the Sky would be just an A330′.

  • Orlando airport plans for a new on-property hotel “in a vacant field across from the Terminal C parking garage with access from both the air terminal and the future Brightline high-speed rail station” (HT: J.R.)

  • Economists are still right about airline deregulation

  • Their Southwest Airlines flight took off, and they’re complaining about the snacks?

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  2. Now that lazy domestic FAs have been giddily seizing the opportunity presented by COVID to abdicate PDB responsibilities, I’ve gotten into the habit of bringing a drink onboard from the lounge to offset their laziness. I generally like to follow the rules so this routine was a bit unnatural for me at first, but given the consistency with which FAs shirk their job obligations, it quickly became a comfortable ritual for me. Never once have I regretted doing it.

  3. Lucky you haven’t been arrested. It is definitely against FAA regulations to bring alcoholic beverages on-board a commercial aircraft.

  4. @EgE: It is not unlawful to bring alcoholic beverages on board an aircraft.

    It is unlawful to consume alcoholic beverages that have not been served to you by a flight attendant.

    As written, the regulation would allow a flight attendant to serve you your own alcohol that you brought on board, but airline policies generally prohibit that.

    The purpose is apparently to allow flight attendants to gauge the level of intoxication.

  6. It’s called discretion. As long as you are discreet pouring yourself a drink, unless you have nasty neighboring pax, nobody will care. But really, if you’re in coach and so broke you can’t buy yourself a drink from a FA, why are you buying duty-free booze?

    I’d rather talk about the moronic mother who found something in her kid’s food on a SouthWest flight and thinks that the airline will respond to her complaint. Has the woman no brain at all to not know what’s been happening with SouthWest for a MONTH???

  7. From what I’ve read some of the otherwise dry airlines allow you to bring your own alcohol to drink aboard also (EgyptAir and Kuwait Airways)

  9. Ah, the good old days. I was coming back to New York from Paris when the law said you could bring wine on board with you but you couldn’t bring it into the USA with you. So, many people would bring a bottle and drink it over the long trip. As it happened, the plane broke down in Orly and the only part was in De Gualle, so we had to wait a couple of hours. Everyone had wine, and they rolled out the snack cart, so it became a party at the gate. But, there were only two corkscrews among the passengers. I had one, and my bike trip companion had the other. We sampled every bottle of wine we opened.

  11. Once again here is the correct information: You can also bring into the cabin up to 5 liters of alcohol (between 24%–70% ABV or 48–140 proof) purchased at a duty-free shop after the security checkpoint at the airport.

    The only catch: You can’t drink the booze you brought while you’re on the plane

    I guess this writer has nothing else to report on in the aviation industry except alcohol

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