PAX Brings food for crew... Thoughts?
 

Last night I was flying home and when I got off the plane, I heard the pilot telling a ground person that:

"they had been running off their feet all day and were worried about what they were going to do for dinner before leaving on a 3hr flight"

when a passenger out of the blew gave them 3 medium pizza's and some snacks. The pilot was talking about how the the guy said he always does this for crew and how great of a gesture it was and how it solved their dinner issue as they ate the food enroute up to YEG. ^

While I think this is a great gesture, and clearly appreciated by the crew, could this not be seen as a safety concern? What if the person had somehow poisoned this food prior to giving it to the crew? I'm sure a passenger could easily sneak poison through security...

While I know this may seem far-fetched, you just never know these days. :confused:

If you were the pilot.. Would you eat food given to you randomly by a passenger?

I remember seeing some rule(or just policy) that says the captain and 1st officer must eat different meals, to avoid the potential risk of food poisoning. Does not apply to all airlines.

based on that logic, crew should also refuse the candy that FTers give them

do all catering staff at airports go through extensive security background checks?

And what if a meteorite snapped a wing off? And what if a pilot become deranged, killed the copilot, and plunged the airplane to the ground?

Man, do I hate this constant state of fearmongering and paranoia. Take it south of the border, please.

AGREED!
This isn't the great U S of A with laced arsenic and/or rat poison in Tylenol bottles!!!!:rolleyes:

^^^^^

Well said, Mauricio. ^

3 pizzas?! Wow, how long was the flight? That's a really nice thing to do from the passenger, I wish somebody did that for me when I was a pilot! (Cargo doesn't tend to stop by the pizza place on the way to the airport... Haha!)

It depends on which staff you're talking about and where the catering facility is. All catering drivers hold a RAIC, which means they have undergone a 5 year CSIS/RCMP background check. It is possible to legally work with only a temporary pass (i.e. basic police clearance) but I've never seen one work with a temporary pass because they wouldn't be able to open doors or access the jet bridge. It wouldn't be too difficult for a crew meal to be tampered with before it even got on the truck, though.

That's another reason why many airlines have the different meals policy though. Sucks to be FO, I guess. :D Except on the E90 which doesn't even have "real" meals to begin with.

What should the pilots have told him? "Sorry sir, we can't accept this because you might be poisoning us. I'm sure your fellow passengers will appreciate some pizza though, they don't mind getting poisoned." There's easier ways to take down an aeroplane than with pizza.

Well said indeed.

Isn't three different pizzas..

three different meals?

Tricky! Has AC offered you a job yet? ;)

The crew will otherwise buy their own meals at the terminal. Why would that be any safer?

Lol..

Usually meals are prepared from the same batch.. but pizzas are huge and in seperate boxes.. perhaps OP knew the rules and provided multiple pizzas instead of just one for that FAA rule alone..:D

In that case... again, it sucks to be FO! (or SO if there is one)

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^ no wonder it's three mediums and not a party size pizza

btw, it's not the OP knowing the rules, it's the passenger the OP described, OP pointed out said passenger might poison the pilot

Well, with some pizza places you might be doing the pilots a favour by sprinkling in some lethal condiments.