Last night I flew from Washington National to Dallas Fort-Worth on American. There was very little unusual about the flight other than we were delayed on departure by a ground hold for ‘VIP aircraft movements at Andrews’.

We boarded on time. I was flying up front. Flight attendants offered predeparture beverages. Drinks were kept topped up.

As I was deplaining one of the pilots asked a flight attendant whether he could take a bottle of wine from the galley. She said sure, and he asked which galley cart he’d find it in? I scurried off the plane. I didn’t want to linger, appearing to be listening in on their little transaction. Besides I was a little bit in shock.

• I don’t know if he was terminating in Dallas for the night
  
• And I have no idea when his next flight would be

I’m not at all suggesting the pilot was going to drink too much or try to fly too quickly after drinking. In fact I assume he was not. For all I know he planned to (re-)gift the bottle to someone rather than drinking it himself. I didn’t notice on his uniform whether he was the captain or co-pilot.

Two years ago American had to apologize to its pilots over a photo of pilots mixing cocktails in its inflight magazine – the image of pilot drinking is that serious – and that’s even without getting into issues of stealing the bottle from the plane.

American boards Airbus A321 aircraft 35 minutes prior to departure on domestic flights. My connecting flight to Austin began boarding with an announcement for ConciergeKey members 39 minutes prior to departure. No one boarded. First class boarded 38 minutes out. The cabin crew wasn’t expecting us – no one was positioned at the door of the aircraft, they were all congregated in the back galley. One of them declared “I guess they can start boarding whenever they want!” Another night with the world’s largest airline.