No food/drink on TUI flights

chog

I am certainly not an alcoholic but when I go on holiday I like to have a couple of drinks on the plane to start my holiday off on the right foot. TUI are saying that because of staff shortages, they will not be doing food or drink on my flight. I can bring my own food/soft drink but NO alcohol. If I take a couple of vodka miniatures from home and a bottle of lemonade from the airport, why shouldn't I be able to have them on board?

Voyager2002

chog said:

I am certainly not an alcoholic but when I go on holiday I like to have a couple of drinks on the plane to start my holiday off on the right foot. TUI are saying that because of staff shortages, they will not be doing food or drink on my flight. I can bring my own food/soft drink but NO alcohol. If I take a couple of vodka miniatures from home and a bottle of lemonade from the airport, why shouldn't I be able to have them on board?

You would have trouble getting your bottle of lemonade through security and on to the 'plane. Some duty-free shops sell cans of ready-mixed drinks so that could be a solution. And of course most airport have bars...

As for 'why?', I once had the misfortune to travel to Cuba and back in the company of a group of drunk and noisy Russians (drunks of other nationalities are available and every bit as unpleasant). Just about everyone on that 'plane wished that the airline had been more careful about allowing alcohol on board.

Alan_Bowen

And the issue has been resolved apparently and everything is back to normal tomorrow. 

bagand96

The reason you can't take your own alcohol is that most airlines have a policy of only allowing alcohol sold on board to be consumed.  This is so that crew can have a degree of control over alcohol consumed. 

NoodleDoodleMan

bagand96 said:

The reason you can't take your own alcohol is that most airlines have a policy of only allowing alcohol sold on board to be consumed.  This is so that crew can have a degree of control over alcohol consumed. 

Also so that they can sell minatures, small bottles of wine and canned beer at inflated prices.

The problem of intoxicated passengers on aircraft has two contributory factors - airport bars open at silly o'clock times before flight departures, and surreptitious access to duty free purchases onboard.

First time I flew back from the USA (many years ago) the duty free was stowed away only to be collected on departing the plane in the UK.

Voyager2002

bagand96 said:

The reason you can't take your own alcohol is that most airlines have a policy of only allowing alcohol sold on board to be consumed.  This is so that crew can have a degree of control over alcohol consumed. 

Yes, except that strictly speaking the policy is that you can only consume alcohol SERVED by them. So on a full-service airline you might wish to enjoy your own wine with dinner, and could do so by giving the steward(ess) the bottle to chill, and then to serve you at an appropriate moment. Of course if you showed signs of being drunk the service would come to an end.

Even I do not have the nerve to try this on Ryanair!

NoodleDoodleMan

A few year ago heading for Spain,on a TUI  flight if memory serves, the chief steward gave the party line on drinking your own alcohol on board - then a dire warning lecture if anybody was caught doing so - they would inform the Spanish police on touch down.

I had a wee chuckle on that one - I could just imagine the Guarda Civil reaction to being called in to deal with a case of some punter only scoffing a couple of self catering minatures.

Different of course if some over intoxicated passenger(s) had caused a drunken scene on the aircraft  - but in that case the origin of the booze would be largely irrelevant.

NoodleDoodleMan

Just noticed that there has been another recent incident on a flight involving a British passenger.

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/passenger-punches-pilot-wizzair-flight-crete/