How many times has this happened to you? Seeking to purchase a $3 bottle of wine to calm your nerves in-flight, the flight attendant takes your $5, $10 or $20 bill,but says she/he will not be able to change it until they receive enough singles. One would think this matter could be resolved if they worked from a pre-stocked, petty cash drawer with, maybe, a $20 or $40 stock of change. I’ve suspected they don’t because of security concerns – but considering the passengers have already passed thru security, where weapons would be detected, why should this be a problem? If this policy is seen as a barrier to in-flight theft, what about passengers who are carrying far larger amounts of money?
Come on. It’s not like we are talking about a needed reaction to a wave of in-flight robberies.
Is this no petty cash policy, in fact, a policy carry-over from the days when passengers were not screened?
While all answers would be welcome, I’d be especially interested in answers furnished by flight attendants themselves – or by airline employees in general.
A Flight Attendant’s primary job is the safety of the passengers, not serving drinks. You don’t want your FA to be thinking about the cashbox security when she’s supposed to be thinking about your safety.
True, I do want them to be thinking about my safety. However, if something goes tragically wrong at drink serving altitude, I doubt that any flight attendant is going “save the day”. The OP is, IMHO, wondering why they just can’t break a damn $20. At least that is what I am wondering.
I think it’s probably not worth the time or effort for the airline to make sure that someone in the crew has the right change. How much would you expect someone on the crew to carry? $40 in singles? The airline will then have to have someone sign it out to the crew member and then count up the change on the way back.
Under the present method, the airline only has to count the money at the end.
could some former flight attendant tell us if it is true that some (all) of the money from drink sales goes into their pockets (as was claimed on radio talk show I heard recently). They can go to a liquor store, buy whatever minatures they think they will need, then sell them for… what? $5 for a Scotch.
Well, Adam, I have a sister who is an airline executive, and I hear all the grisly insider detail from the FAs. And I assure you, when they’re serving drinks, the FAs have one thing most in mind, getting everyone served and the drink cabinet latched back down asap before they hit some turbulence and it breaks loose and smashes down on someone (usually the FA). And they hope you have exact change so you don’t slow them down. Sometimes they’ll come back with change only after the cabinet is stowed. But I suppose it depends on the airline, as to their policies.
Every international flight I’ve been on accepts credit cards (particularly as they sell duty-free and tax-free goods), and the last trans-Atlantic flight I took also accepted both US dollars and pounds Sterling, or combinations of them at a push. I imagine it would be a real pain to expect them to have much change for either currency. I’ve never had to pay for drinks on national or international flights either, and I usually travel economy.
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I’ve never had to pay for drinks on national or international flights either, and I usually travel economy.
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Hm. I’ve never been on a domestic flight where coach-class didn’t have to pay for alcoholic beverages.
Except… There’s one carrier that I take from a major airport to a smaller one, that serves free micro-brewed beer and locally produced wine. I don’t know if they’re being nice, or if they want to calm down passengers who aren’t used to flying on “little” (Ha!) airplanes. (They fly DeHaviland turboprops.) If they are offering it to get people to choose their airline instead of the competitor’s, it worked for me!
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The airlines I fly no longer serve peanuts, probably because they’re afraid of a lawsuit from someone who is allergic to nuts. I wonder what they would do if I brought my own?
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Maybe I’ve just been lucky, Johnny L.A.. I’ve flown (IIRC) British Airways, Monarch, British Midland, Royal Thai, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic, but no US-based airlines. Could that be it?
Could be, mattk. I usually fly Alaska/Horizon, but I’ve also flown United/United Express, Continental, American and (a long time ago) TWA. (And a really long time ago, Hughes Air West and PSA. But I was too young to drink then.)
Given a choice, I’d rather fly myself. Sure, it would take 10 or 12 hours to get from Los Hideous to Seattle; but it would be much more fun. And Vegas? By the time you do the commercial airport thing (ride to LAX, check-in, getting to the airport early as they recommend, etc.) you’d be landing your Cessna at about the same time as the passenger jet. And you’d be on your own schedule. Want to stay an extra hour? No problem! But since I’ll be quitting my job soon to move to WA, it wouldn’t be a good idea to spend $40,000 on an airplane.
I think its in the airline’s best interest, at the very least in terms of customer satisfaction, and therefore worth their time and effort, to do things right, and have sufficient change on hand before they start selling the booze. If there going to go to the time and effort to sell the booze, then they ought to do it right. Otherwise, just hand out the free softdrinks and peanuts and be done with it.
Anyway, I’ve heard cautionary tales about people allergic to peanut oil getting sick even with peanuts open somewhere else in the room. So be careful. And very afraid.
