Video has surfaced of a male passenger in the gate area of their flight severaly impaired – unable to maintain their balance and struggling with their bag. I’d almost set it to Keystone Kops chase music as the background.
This looks like Fort Lauderdale to me, but many of you will know better than I will. It’s been several years since I used to fly in and out of there regularly. The ceiling lights and grey carpet tiles match my memory.
Some of the striking reactions to this include an airline employee saying,
- “this is how you know you’re gonna make that full flight as a Non Rev.” The flight may be full, but not every passenger is going to be boarding!
- “offload his baggage quickly” but in fact, bags don’t have to travel with domestic passengers any longer. As long as bags are electronically screened, positive bag matching no longer applies. That was an anti-terror rule that applied for bags not screened on the theory that most terrorists didn’t want to martyr themselves so as long as the customer flew with the bag the bag was probably safe.
- “To be fair he’s already flyin’.” And that may be true!
- “Only on @spiritairlines…” Spirit may have the reputation, but they’re not the only ones with these passengers!
If the passenger was intoxicated, it does raise the frequent question of overserving in the terminal. But it also raises the question of airline understaffing. Usually a passenger’s inability to fly is not caught until they’re onboard and in the air – because it’s not this obvious, and airlines have reduced staffing at the gate, so they’re too busy boarding and getting the flight out (and policing carry-on bags) to notice intoxicated customers.
And while a passenger may have too much to drink at an airport restaurant, when they can’t do this they bring their own. We saw pre-gaming and cocktails brought surreptitiously onboard by customers during the pandemic when airlines had curtailed inflight drink service. In other words, people are going to people regardless of policy.
@Gary what you call “severely impaired” those of us living in FLL call a Tuesday afternoon, LOL!
There was no guessing work with this one about his level of intoxication. Although I think there was more at play here. Airport bars are often the culprit but booze is incredibly profitable so I doubt any airport is going to move to limit the number of drinks.
This looks like something you’d see at FLL although MCO and DFW have it’s share of people unable to function in society. TPA is also up there.
Welcome to Society 2025.
Now that’s… Fraud Liquordale! 954!
Gary – you really need to proofread before you post. Spelling and grammar errors happen far too often.
severaly lol
@Hashi — He’s gotta leave a few in so that folks like yourself can find them, comment about them, and enhance the engagement on the site in the comments. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
Dude is either a lightweight or must be rich to afford to buy that much alcohol at airport prices