mctaste

Stealing isn’t cool, but I have also never found myself thinking, “this airplane stuff sure is nicer than what I have at home!”

Maybe if this were the case, I would be able to justify the theft to myself.

snaxmuppet

I admit to keeping the little salt and pepper sets in the shape of little aeroplanes. Not sure why to be honest... I just thought they looked cute! Only have one set though in spite of flying many times in club since.

paulieuk

I am pleased to be the owner of two boxes of six glass tumblers etched on the underside with the bmi logo (just a bit smaller than ideal home-pour G&T size) which I bought on eBay after the sad demise - which I assumed to be from a company which had bought out all the redundant stock as they had loads more of them on offer, along with other branded items.

KeaneJohn

At the last BA open day in the procurement department I asked why they didn’t sell surplus stock and old trolleys as I would have loved one of the old Club Europe London coffee cups and the BA guy said you should have just taken them.

A lot of table wear goes awry from GF I’m told.

Fatdickie

At which point do cleaners/ cabin crew check if the LIFE vests are all there and replace if missing?

Shudder to think of a stag/hen party taking a dozen, then the return flight had an emergency and this vital safety equiptment was missing... With not enough to go round

Words fail me

Giggleswick

So is it also now okay to steal silverware, dishes, and glasses from restaurants, or do these rules only apply at higher altitudes? Just wondering.

Fatdickie

Exactly
So after having afternoon tea at the Ritz, the waitress comes to clear the table, only to find the group of tourists have already cleared the table for her..... anything not nailed down off of the table into a carrier bag... Including table cloth and seat cushions....

It's theft....

orbitmic

Leading question I'm afraid. By calling it stealing you already make it wrong, but that is your interpretation and in some of the examples above, not what the crew answered the posters. Is it ok steal someone's pen? No. Yet, would you agree that most hotels expect at least some of their customers to keep the logo'ed pens they leave in the bedroom? Is it ever ok to steal clothes somewhere? Of course not. Yet, do you disagree that when BA hands you pyjamas in F, you are actually entitled to keep them?

So how do you know what is and is not allowable to keep except when it is explicitly stated (e.g. most airlines have "property of xx" written on noise cancelling headsets for instance). How do you know, for instance, that one of the little plastic ramequins used for CE desserts (which BA does reuse) are ok to take or not? Now don't take me wrong, I'm against people making the call themselves and assuming that they can take whatever they want, but as mentioned, in the several examples in this thread when posters stated that they explicitly asked crew members and were told that they could keep x or y, I'm just not clear how some FTer's personal evaluation based on parallels with different situations would trump a person asking clarification from someone entrusted by the airline who explicitly allows them to take things.

And by the way, I don't smoke but for instance, on several occasions, I have seen people in restaurants ask waiters or maitres d'hôtel if they can keep the ashtray. It really puzzled me (and I assumed it would not be something restaurants would allow patrons to keep) but was invariably surprised to see the staff allow them to keep those (and I'm not talking of disposable ashtray). So what do I know, and why should someone clearly honestly in doubt not be able to ask the waiter if they can keep x or y and accept their answer whatever it may be?

ttama

It safe to assume from your conversation at the open day that BA staff have officially said we can take whatever we want?

If it's not official BA policy then surely that member of staff is being extremely unprofessional. If they worked for me they'd be fired.

But if staff are allowed to encourage us to help ourselves, maybe that's why our taxes and fees are so high. Maybe we're all being charged a fee to cover our optional "gifts". Or is it that only special customers are being told they can help themselves, and the rest of us cover the cost.....

If anyone from BA is reading this thread, could we please have some clarification? Because I sure as hell would resent paying more for my flight if the extra cost is to cover theft that the company actively encourages. And I'd like to understand what would happen if I were caught stealing things I like the look of. Can I claim that someone at the open day said it was OK?

muscat

Why would anyone going sailing steal a life vest from a plane when any commercial yacht (or even privately owned yachts) would already have them? Unlike proper life vests for sailing, life vests on planes are not designed to be worn for a long time pre-inflation.

Momentum57

I have trouble even taking some of the disposables. Why? When I was a child and my family would fly, my mother would have us (all of us) ask for playing cards. She collected these playing cards placing them in her purse. We never played cards! I found boxes full of miscellaneous airline, hotel, spa, crap cleaning her house. The disposable slippers in the hotel room the face soap OK taking a glass nope. Now I am conscious to use what I take or make sure my husband uses it.


Right I know id think twice before having them over my place.

And if you do they have a website for you to buy it. Though I guess the thought is spending 11 dollars on United Polaris salt and pepper shakers is included in the fare. In which case why would you try to hide it? And why doesn't the airline offer to box the goods at the end of the flight like "oh and here are your dirty dishes, drinkware, salt and pepper shakers, blankets, pajamas, napkins, and we pulled out some tissue paper from the bathroom for your too sir"

cplunk

The first time I ever saw this happen was Emirates flight, crew came around collecting all the blankets into large plastic bags and then stuffed them into the lavatories.

It was the DAY AFTER they crashed that 777 in Dubai....

Flying Yazata

I've never taken any tableware souvenirs from BA or any other carriers, since any plates and glasses are dirty after I've eaten/drunk from them. I certainly wouldn't like to have smelling dishes with me around the world. Not even until the next hotel.

As for Wedgwood: you can snicker at people stealing the stuff and with an appropriate tone inform them that the china is Made in Indonesia. Soooo... so much for being English fine bone china from Stoke. And as for the company Wedgwood, it's now part of Fiskars. I do have a set of Wedgwood plates at home, but it's not some miniscule stuff for airline catering and all dented from use. If I can fly Club Europe/World and First, then sure I can buy the odd tableware as well.

As for stealing bedding:

T8191

I just cannot conceive any reason for collecting airline (or hotel) stuff, but perhaps because we have enough of our own possessions already. FFS, we even travel with our own Salt & Pepper mills!

Nostalgia? We have boxes of it in the Attic, accrued over many decades from legitimate sources!

However, people are different, which makes them quite interesting ... occasionally.

cplunk

Now there's an idea.

Every time I'm on a really obscure airline that doesn't service anywhere near home (in Seattle), like Oman air, or Thai airlines, nick a spoon or something with there logo and just kinda leave it behind whenever I'm at an barely known acquaintances house....