British Airways has been spending a lot of time cracking down on cabin crew behavior, threatening to fire flight attendants who don’t delete all the selfies in their social media profiles if they include layover hotels, and even if their social media accounts are private.

• No more “get ready with me” TikToks in front of the bathroom mirror.
  
• Uniform shots in the corridor or lobby.
  
• Pool-side and beach selfies.
  
• Group photos in the hotel bar, restaurant, or shuttle.

This is ostensibly for crew, but BA is also concerned about image. After all, an entire crew was nearly kicked out of a resort after a drunken fight, crew fabricated a mugging to cover up a wild night in Rio and a flight attendant was investigated for offering sex to passengers.

So where did they decide to focus next? Banning crew from drinking coffee while in uniform.

I’ve long suggested that investing in better onboard coffee was a great way to:

• Improve operational efficiency and reduce delays by eliminating crew stopping at Starbucks in the terminal on the way to the aircraft.

• Improve employee morale which in turn affects customer service. Better coffee is a product flight attendants can be proud of and reduces complaints they receive from customers.

But British Airways is going in the opposite direction entirely, banning coffee for crew! In fact, they are banned from drinking anything except water and even water must be consumed “discretely.”

Other drinks like coffee and sodas can only be consumed when crew are seated in a designated restroom or cafeteria…British Airways has instructed its crew to “embrace” the new guidelines, with the new rules banning the consumption of coffee part of the airline’s program to make the company a better place to work.

Airline rules for crew like “no smoking/eating/drinking in public while in uniform” are common, and the largest owner of British Airways, Qatar Airways, says “Eating or drinking in public are not permitted except in coffee shops or restaurants of crew layover hotel or airport.”