brp

Now extend this to a bottle of rum. or vodka. A single pax consuming a fair fraction of said bottle...

Rather than distinguish types of alcohol in the rules, they make it such that the FA must serve. Makes monitoring much easier than watching you periodically as you pour your own.

Cheers.

SNA_Flyer

AA's stemware sucks. I've always thought about having them open a bottle for me, but I generally don't travel with my Riedels, and good stemware makes all the difference. Drinking an excellent wine out of crappy stemware is not my bag, baby.

It's bad enough on CX F that they serve fantastic Lynch-Bages in the small-bowled stems they have, but at least the Lynch-Bages is free!

whynotfly

Yes, but what vintage. Airlines will sometimes buy the right year, but often they buy the brand or the chateau just because it has a pedigree and not that it tastes superb, but only that it tastes acceptable.

jkc22

It all depends.....they've just bought the most currently available vintage.

I've had 94, 95, 96, 97, and the most recent 98 vintages of the L-B on CX....

Of course, when they had both the 94 and 95, I picked the 95....while a lot of other passengers wanted the "older" 94.....

CX now serves Branaire-Ducru 98, but it started with the 96 vintage.

I've always picked the Antinori Tignanello 97 (CX has the 2000 vintage now) over the B-D.....

Similarly on AA, I've had 98, 99, and 2000 of the Batailley or the Lynch Moussas in the 2001.....so I think they've just been buying the most currently available vintage until the stock depletes......other than BA, which is known to cellar its wines, I don't think any other airlines use that practice....(although occasionally I've had older vintages on CX...like my trip LAX-HKG in F this Feb had a 95 L-B, which I was glad to down the entire bottle by myself.... )

whynotfly

You are a rare frequent flyer. Few people have the appreciation of wine that you demonstrate. Let's hope that AA buys ample amounts of Northern California 2002 Cabs.

vail

Is that correct that you can bring your own wine in F or J?
I have flown with wine before but it never occurred to me that we could open it.
Whoever posted that it is a waste obviously cannot appreciate how a good wine can improve 9 hours on a flight--I think a nice bottle will always make it better.
AA sometimes has some nice wines--but never Lynch Bages.
At least not on the routes I fly.
Best I ever saw was a Sterling 3 palms vineyard about 10 years ago.

Trvlr

Is there still no real confirmation one way or the other about BYOW in Coach? I can hardly believe it's an FAA rule, and all I can see on the AA website is that alcohol must be served by an AA flight attendant.

I'm flying CDG-ORD next week (in Y) and intend to bring wine along (no way I'm having Sprite with the cheeses/bread/pates I'm bringing to replace the "International Flagship Lunch"). I'll ask in the Admirals Club beforehand and then obviously again once onboard, and report back.

Aaron G.

BenjaminNYC

Does AA have superior stemware in international F vs. international J? UA has real wine goblets (not huge, but better than J) and champagne flutes in three class F both domestically and internationally. ^

NDFan

Federal Aviation Regulations state:
Sec. 121.575 - Alcoholic beverages.

(a) No person may drink any alcoholic beverage aboard an aircraft unless the certificate holder operating the aircraft has served that beverage to him.

AA.com states:
Only alcoholic beverages served by a flight attendant may be consumed onboard.

Neither suggests a difference between F/J/Y cabins, nor that the FA is required to serve an alcoholic beverage brought on board by the pax.
So it would appear to be up to the FA whether or not he/she agrees to serve an alcoholic beverage provided by pax.

Perhaps one of the FAs who reads this board, could advise whether or not AA has an unwritten recommendation to FAs regarding this issue?

Happy Travels

FWAAA

AA FAs will usually pleasantly agree to serve BYOB alcohol to F and J pax, but will not go for it in coach (where the $5, soon to be $6, per drink revenue loss would be too severe and where there's just too many pax to handle such individualized service).

aamilesslave

$6? There goes the myth that it rounded up to $5 to make it easier for FAs to make change.

FWAAA

Rumor is that drinks will go to $6 when the handheld credit card swipes are implemented in the near future. With credit cards, AA could increase it to $7.67 or $7.77 depending on the aircraft flown without worrying about change.

Robert Leach

I was part of a group of 4 that brought two bottles on board in late December, all of us seated in F DFW-SFO. I had the two bottles in a small wine bag and quietly walked up to the galley during the boarding phase (where, of course, the flight attendants were all standing) and quietly asked one of the attendants if she would kindly take this wine from me, as I wanted to have it served on board to me later. She said, "sure."

The Purser was standing nearby, overheard the conversation, and jumped in. His pupils dilated, hyperventilating slightly, he said "I'm not sure we can do that. I'll have to check."

He came back later and said he had checked and that the only stipulation was that if we didn't finish the wine, he would have to pour it out, that we could not removed our opened, partially finished wine from the plane. I assured him that finishing two bottles amongst four people would not be a problem.

From that point onward, everything went fine. He opened the wine and actually put it on the cart.

The only funny thing was that as we were finishing the two bottles he asked me if I was driving once we got to SFO. Now, mind you, it was the equivalent of only two glasses per person, and we still had two hours to go. But, realizing that he must have been concerned that I might not be safe to drive, I assured him that a car was waiting for us. I found that humorous, as I would bet he would not have batted an eye to serve five mixed drinks to someone over the course of a 3+ hour flight.

And like someone above said, despite the purists who say a wine simply doesn't taste good at 35,000 feet, I found it quite enjoyable to have a decent wine on board. (For the record, I brought on a bottle of Lewis Chardonnay and one of Dehlinger Pinot Noir).

BenjaminNYC

Half bottle over 3 hours? Give me a friggin break. I would have said "I sure am".

tom911

I'm just heading off to a wine and food festival in one of the parks here in Christchurch. I'll have a drink for you