There is a new airline reality show called On The Fly, there was one a few years ago with a similar concept called Airline. They follow the boarding and terminal crew on the job, like COPS if you will.
Almost half the segments seem to be about someone snitching on someone they think is intoxicated and the crew denying them boarding. On the one I just watched a person working in the food court reported a guy “off in his own world” to the airline workers, the dude was just sitting on a bench?
None of these people are visibly drunk, if any of them were charged with public intoxication you’d call it police harassment.
Is this normal operating prochedure? That everyone in the airport is on the hunt for those who appear a little less than bright and alert?
I’ve only flown international flights into and out of the US but I never saw anything like this.
I can’t say factually one way or the other about how diligent they are about identifying potential drunks. But I can tell you that the airlines have good reason to keep drunks off their planes. Get 100+ people into a confined and crowded space, and throw a drunk into the mix, things could get ugly. If it was a bar or city council meeting or whatever, you could just throw the drunk out. Can’t throw someone out if they’re acting the fool on a plane.
The crew and the airline have a legal obligation to deny boarding.
(bolding mine)
The “certificate holder” is the airline, meaning every employee of that airline has a responsibility to uphold the regulation. Also, as mentioned upthread, it’s just generally not a great idea to let drunk strangers into your 600mph pressurized sky tube.
Well it is one thing to deny boarding to people obviously intoxicated or drunk, and another to be literally hunting for them in the terminal. I mean there is nothing about them that would indicate they were intoxicated, I see loopier looking people at the grocery.
What about people with a fear of flying who have to take sedatives to get on the plane?
I mean hell plane tickets are expensive, I’d be terrified to buy them with a airline that is that paranoid.
The show follows Southwest Airlines which I believe only serves domestic flights, are they unusually vigilant? Is it just domestic flights?
I suspect that what you’re seeing is a bit of artistic license for the sake of creating an interesting television show.
For one thing, just because it’s been in half of the episodes of the show you’ve seen, doesn’t mean it happens on a regular basis. Secondly, it’s entirely possible that, while the drunk passengers are real, the exact circumstances of how they’re identified and dealt with are being staged a bit for purposes of television.
Hi. Having spent a dozen years in the Customer service department of a major airline, working every job from CSA to passenger planner, to lead agent and finally Customer Service Manager, I can tell you with out any measure of a doubt, under section 42 of the CFR any employee of an airline who allows a person access to an aircraft, who appears to be intoxicated, the airline will be subject to fines. There is no wiggle room. Every one of my employees had to be trained and re-trained.
The arguments were many. No. I don’t know your blood alcohol content. No. I will not be administering any tests to you. No. It’s not our policy and it’s not a law. It’s a Federal Regulation. We can not let anyone with even the slightest appearance of intoxication aboard. Yes. Our airline serves liquor to it’s passengers. Sure it’s possible you became intoxicated due to another of our employees over serving you on the first leg of your flight, but that does not change the fact that I’m denying you boarding tonight.
It costs us much less to deny a drunk than to deal with a diversion in the event someone becomes a security issue.
Speaking from persoanl experience, I’ve never been aware of this rule, or bothered by it.
I’ve boarded many, many airplanes drunk. Not God’s own drunk, but at least knee crawlin’, slip slidin’, Reggie Youngin’, Commode huggin’ drunk. And they let me on just fine. And always sold me another beer if I asked.
I’ve even seen the airline employees making jokes about another passenger, who WAS God’s own drunk, and they let him board.
The* On The Fly* episode from last week featured a guy that was beyond swizzled. At one point, they found him unresponsive on the floor. I was a bit surprised they didn’t call EMS and have him hauled off to the hospital or the local drunk tank. Think he wound up taking a cab to a nearby hotel, slept the rest of the day and night away, then went home on the first flight next morning.
Worth noting that this was the day after Mardi Gras, so a whole lot of people in the airport were recovering from a lot of drinking. Most were probably just feeling a bit wooly, but this guy was a notable exception.
Thanks, if you don’t mind my asking what standard did you usually apply?
Or what exactly could count as appearing intoxicated, could even a tired person be denied?
*One thing I thought of is that perhaps the people smell highly of alcohol, and that for some reason the show omits that.
I never saw that episode, in fact I was a avid watcher of Airline but only became aware tonight they had another airline based reality show. And I noticed once again the episode featured a “drunk”.
The worst I saw on Airline was a college football player, some anonymous person had informed an employee he was intoxicated:dubious: They sent out a manager to talk to him, when she approached he was reading a book. She basically said he wasn’t going to board period, and agreed he did not appear intoxicated! :smack: Seems the anonymous tip was enough.
I’ve been drunk while boarding bunches of times. Not staggering drunk but reasonably so. This happens quite often when leaving Las Vegas. A friend of mine got refused boarding in Vegas. We all said, well, he’s usually a lot more drunk. It was really surprising as I’d say at least 1/4 of the people leaving Vegas are drunk. Now, I’m a bit more aware, but that’s not going to keep me from drinking at the last second when leaving Vegas.
If an airline denies boarding to someone who seems liquored up, what (if anything) do they have to provide to the would-be passenger as far as compensation for the missed flight goes?
For the record, I fly a lot, and even after all of these years I am still somewhat apprehensive about flying, something that alcohol is very helpful in coping with, so I imagine that I have boarded a plane with a BAC over .08 (if not significantly more) literally 200 or 300 times, and I have never once had an airline employee so much as look at me twice…
This. I’ve boarded hundreds of planes pretty well shitfaced. I wasn’t to the point where I was falling down, vomiting on other passengers, or being obnoxious and loud, but if anyone observed me, it would have been obvious that I had tossed back a few.
My fiance is always at least tipsy boarding a plane because he’s absolutely shit-your-pants terrified of flying. So now I know that the local airport bar opens at 8 in the goddamned morning and am afraid that one day somebody will see me drinking there at that time. (Hey, a Shocktop comes with an orange, that’s practically breakfast.)
I fly a few times each year, almost always for fun reasons. I begin my vacation before I board. Along with alcohol I usually eat a couple brownies (I don’t drink on an empty stomach).
I’m discrete and there are these cool things called breath mints and sunglasses. I’ve never been hassled.
I was on a flight a couple of years ago and the guy across the aisle was ejected for being drunk. I must say that the stewardesses were very good because it looked to me as if he might get violent.
