AdBoy

Agreed.

DCP2016

Is this limited to young European FA's? Either the media is different here in the US on reporting acts like this or it never really happens here in the US. Maybe because most of the younger crews are stuck on NYC to WAS or hub to small Midwest town flights all day?

corporate-wage-slave

I don't think it happens that often, but yes there have been some anecdotes over the years, usually of one particular product (typically champagne or a particular wine) rather than all of them. However from what I can make out, the usual staff preference is for cans of soft drinks and maybe some gin or beer - it's not usually the champagne that staff are going for. In any event many longhaul routes are catered at out stations. This particular aspect is more to do with excessive stock management controls rather than staff overindulgence, you can tell when they have over controlled the inventory by the spate of complaints that arise here from the LAS service, which for various reasons is frequently highlighted. We had that spate a year ago but not so much recently.

As for the general story here, clearly there was a letter to staff due to the line being crossed, but I think it's easy to over-state this. From my own observations crew members tend to be more interested in a bit of shopping than anything more daring. Many of the east coast USA-Canada trips are only give 20 hours in the destination, 8 plus hours for sleeping, which doesn't give much scope for painting the town red. Other locations the staff are in hotels in the middle of some industrial estate or a highway inter-change. Moreover Mixed Fleet / LGW isn't paid enough to go completely legless on a regular basis. And in the case of LGW, some of their destinations are incredibly expensive.

So just trying to give some balance here!

cheltzel

There have been stories about US carriers as well. You just have to do some searches on the net and you will find plenty.

Can I help you

We cannot purchase champagne or full bottles of wine.

mike&co

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I don’t think that’s really necessary. CIHY is taking the time to respond to the points raised and given his previous history on FT, it will be nothing other than an honest opinion or fact based on his many years of experience working with BA.

Can I help you

Thank you for that but I just ignore Trolls.
And just to reconfirm we cannot buy champagne or full bottles of wine.

Sam Bee

Am I reading too much into that or can you buy unfull bottles of wine? There must be plenty of amazing wine that just gets poured down the plughole. Do you get to keep / buy that?!

I hate waste!

nallison

Groups of young people placed together expenses paid in nice hotels in tropical destinations. It's a real brainteaser what might happen next. Was the news on the Pope's religion we've all been waiting for on the next page?

Good for them I say, especially given their management have made it clear they consider the job a jolly for a few years in which opportunity to enjoy the world is compensation for pretty terrible pay.

Can I help you

So do I and our sinks do get to sample some very nice wines and champagnes, we can only purchase the quarter bottles of W wine.

windowontheAside

Pity the papers aren't so keen to pick up the good news stories. A family member was on a night out with other cc members and ended up (probably) saving the life of a businessman who was taken seriously ill at the bar they were in. I'm sure that many other stories of good deeds go unnoticed.

'andad

Yes Hiddy, we should hear them.

Waterhorse

Only unopened miniatures, a very limited amount, and a few cans of beer and soft drinks and if still aboard the small bottles of wine, again in very limited amounts can be bought through the crew purchase scheme. You would have to be very small, and with a peculiar constitution to become drunk on what small amounts of alcohol that can be bought in this manner. Crew getting in trouble with booze, something that has been going on as long as commercial aviation, will invariably have been partaking from other sources.

MFMainCrew

No we cannot buy the full size bottles of wine, half drunk or otherwise. We are only allowed to buy the World Traveller miniatures. In Club and First the vast majority of stuff that isn't drunk gets tipped down the loo at 40-20mins to landing. We do have a couple of corks on-board that we can use if the bottle has only had a glass or so out of it but sometimes these aren't loaded.

NA-Flyer

The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is that BA crew are staying in LUXURY HOTELS