In rereading all the above comments, there's one more important point that suffuses practically all of them: the "no drinks" edict really symbolizes for many (including me) the across-the-board deterioration in AA's standards of customer service. In First, especially. That stupid cardboard box of children's grade school cafeteria food? In would suck even if it were in Coach.

And all that for what? Certainly not to save money. Booze sales make money everywhere, not just on airplanes. Can they really be that afraid of their union's anti-alcohol radicalism?