mlafqtv

If someone 'bends the rules' for you and there are no immediate repercussions or danger involved, it's best kept to oneself.Sticking one’s head above the parapet can often lead to more than one expects: as demonstrated here.
Any empathy or sympathy for the OP evaporated with the posting of the photo and the comment “Alls well that ends well...for us. My wife made the point that others in the business class were staring enviously.”
An Ambassador should surely know better on how far to go, especailly as the hole seems to be getting deeper!

flyingmonkie

Of course it does but it's not condoned or permitted by the cabin crew. Where would you draw the line? Which laws should apply and which should not? If the plane is delayed and as a premium passenger / frequent flyer I decide that as recompense to this "blunder" I want a go in the cockpit during the flight should they "bend" the rules to keep me happy?

You appear to have made a moral distinction between breaking customs laws and the other laws that the CC could break and in normal life I would probably agree with you, hell I Jay walk but I won't commit a murder.

The problem is that you cannot apply the same logic to air travel and in particular cabin crew's decisions to ober some laws and not others.

kokonutz

The irony is that I started this thread because I felt I had been lied to as to the reason there were limited PDB options, so I inquired here before tweeting BA. But the crew fixed the situation (for us) which I thought might garner some 'atta boys' for the crew's customer service recovery efforts.

Clearly I was wrong.

I neither seek nor desire empathy, sympathy nor any other emotional response. Despite the PDB issue as well as the lack of printed menus leading to a very slow dinner service, my life has carried on quite nicely.

What I seek is knowledge. And I have learned a lot from this thread. Much of it unexpected.

Um...I make no distinction nor do I draw any lines. I don't know about customs laws. I don't know about BA policy.

What I know is that when I get on what is meant to be a world-class airline on an international business class ticket I'd like a glass of sparkling. That's all. Well, I guess a printed menu would be nice too.

Even crappy airlines like United seem to be able to pull that off seamlessly. That's why I asked the question I did in the OP. @:-)

But things happen and I considered this matter closed until some here thought it right to pillory the cabin crew member for going above and beyond for a customer.

That attitude astounds me. I marvel it in wonder as to how such an attitude could exist. But it does. And seems to be shared by a few.

Again, I have learned from this thread. Many unexpected things!

flyingmonkie

Nobody is pillorying the cabin crew for going above and beyond for a customer. It's the law breaking aspect that bothers people. You have been told that what they did was illegal and yet you continue to believe it was the right thing, as a professional crew of a premium airline, for them to do.... That attitude astounds me.

kokonutz

But how can you know that the crew broke the law with such certainty?

You assume that the crew did something illegal to provide us the minis.

Perhaps those minis WERE from duty-paid supply and but were delivered late. Or had been overlooked. Or there was a limited supply. Or the crew was being lazy during boarding.

Here are the only actual facts anyone is aware of: we were offered juice or water and asked for sparkling, were told that SYD regulations prohibited it (a dubious story at best). A few minutes later a crew member handed us the minis and a couple of glasses saying 'You seemed so disappointed I went and found these for you in the back.'

A simple story of customer service recovery.

Yet from that set of facts you want to make the crew criminal and me their accomplice.

IMHO, a very strange reaction indeed.

KARFA

It seems a number of BA crew have commented up thread already though so one assumes they have more of an idea about what did happen rather than the speculative reasons you proposed.

Out of interest why are you so adamant at defending the crew and trying to come up with possible reasons to show what they did wasn't wrong? I don't think anyone is suggesting you forced them to break the rules so there is no joint responsibility on your part for what they did. As a general rule I am sure you wouldn't condone or encourage crew to break rules/laws.

nancypants

Can I help you

kokonutz

How would a random BA crew member have any earthy idea what occurred unless they were present?

As for my adamance, I do not mean to come across that way. I don't know if the crew did anything wrong in providing those bottles. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. It just surprises me and took me aback that others are so adamant the crew must have broken the law to provide them.

All I doing (thought I was doing) is wondering why some approach the matter with a presumption of illegal activity in terms of the customer service recovery effort by the crew. Because another flight attendant who wasn't there thinks so? That's thin gruel to me. But others can and clearly do feel differently.

Bottom line: I suppose when someone does something nice for me I assume best intentions.
To my point: you are 100% certain that the crew did something illegal? 100%?

May I ask: how can you be so very, completely, absolutely certain?

On this we completely agree.

No bubbles PDB then bubbles but just for us.

No printed menus leading to painfully slow meal service.

Those damn seats.

Overall it was a poor experience.

Next time I'll fly Qantas or, if possible, Singapore.

corporate-wage-slave

I doubt it is dubious, my suspicion, a continuation of CIHY's post above, is that the supplying company only supplied duty free, not duty paid, because of it being Good Friday. The cabin crew then thought it was only half a sin to take some duty free bottles from WTP. This supply outage could have been a coincidental oversight (there are hundreds of items that need to be loaded) or (more likely) out of an abundance of caution since Good Friday has legally had a very particularly set of constraints about drinking. I'm a Trustee of a historical Temperance organisation, which has operated for 160 years in the UK, Commonwealth, Irish and USA countries and the archives are full of the successful stories to prevent alcohol being sold from the end of Maundy Thursday until midday Easter Sunday, even in states within India with very few Christians in them.

Many constraints still exist. This year was only the second year that Ireland allowed alcohol sales on Good Friday (at all), Scotland still restricts alcohol until 17 hrs, and you can rely on the Commonwealth of Australia taking their collective time to consider social changes. Most of the Indian restrictions are still in place. I'm old enough to remember when Fleet Street adjusted their printing schedules so that no printing took place on Good Friday itself. The original story was that if printing was attempted the newspapers would end up blood red, but the more likely reason was that though Fleet Street had 24 hour drinking in pubs connected with newspapers, even they could not evade drinking restrictions on Good Friday.

Can I help you

corporate-wage-slave

I am 101% sure that not paying taxes on alcohol is not just a little illegal, it's quite seriously so. If duty free stock was used on the ground in Australia, who paid the tax on it? And what happens to people who don't pay their taxes? I'm much less sure whether you too could get into trouble for drinking it, but I do know ignorance - whether from cabin crew or anyone else - is no defence.

windowontheAside

I think the 100% certainty on the bottles being duty free comes from the post earlier that states BA doesn't have any duty paid quarter bottles, just full size ones.

etiene

...for certain crimes [in certain jurisdictions] it is no defence - as a group of people in the US will have been relieved to find out just last week.

As stated ad nauseum above, with very well qualified information from within the airline: the crew broke the law - likely to rectify an oversight by the caterers - and are rightly not being praised for having done so.

kokonutz

If, indeed.

That's all very interesting and thanks for sharing.

But I am "101%" sure we flew on Saturday afternoon. @:-)

But IME on US carriers the PDBs in business class are often poured from smaller bottles. I have always assumed this was to eliminate the potential for waste. Maybe things are different on BA. Then again, maybe BA things are different in SYD.


Again, so much certainty in reaction to this incident from people who don't really know the facts (and I freely admit I don't know all the facts...but I am not pretending like I do, either).

Odd. But ok...if it makes you feel better to just KNOW the crew broke the law then whatever floats your boat! Enjoy your righteous indignation with peace and love, peace and love! ^^