Drinking my own alcohol on board?
 

With airlines increasingly seeing the holocaust as a brilliant business model for air transportation, I've started countering it by bringing my own food and alcohol on board.
I never thought anything of it until one time when I flew "Spirit" airlines, an airline who's naming must come from the likes of George Orwell, as I've never flown on any airline so seemingly intent on crushing the soul and spirit of its customers in every way shape or form. Anyway, their inflight announcement specifically forbid consuming your own alcohol onboard.

Anyway, are there rules regarding this or just airline guidelines? What happens if you get "caught"? I could see some FAA bureaucrat with some holy righteousness claiming the flight attendant's wouldn't be able to regulate a passenger's alcohol consumption if he/she brings and drinks his/her own alcohol.

The federal regulation says that the passengers can only drink alcohol that is served to them by a crewmember. This is so the crewmembers have the ability to cutoff a passenger who has had too much to drink before it becomes a problem.

BYOB can be accommodated by the passenger(s) giving their alcohol to the F/A and having the F/A serve it to them during the flight. I'm not aware of any US airlines that currently offer this service on scheduled flights.
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14 CFR 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.

(b) No certificate holder may serve any alcoholic beverage to any person aboard any of its aircraft who—

(1) Appears to be intoxicated;

(2) Is escorting a person or being escorted in accordance with 49 CFR 1544.221; or

(3) Has a deadly or dangerous weapon accessible to him while aboard the aircraft in accordance with 49 CFR 1544.219, 1544.221, or 1544.223.

(c) No certificate holder may allow any person to board any of its aircraft if that person appears to be intoxicated.

(d) Each certificate holder shall, within five days after the incident, report to the Administrator the refusal of any person to comply with paragraph (a) of this section, or of any disturbance caused by a person who appears to be intoxicated aboard any of its aircraft.

I have seen people get caught a couple of times. Once they were told to put it away, the other time the FA joked "I didn't see that". It's technically against federal law as Larry said, but I think enforcement is poor unless someone is being disruptive. With that said, I certainly wouldn't try it. I'm not sure how you would get more than 100 mL past the TSA anyway. I suppose you could buy it post-security.

Either buy it post-security, or bring little 100mL bottles full of whatever spirit it is you want

Many stores sell 50 ml mini-bottles of alcoholic spirits. See, e.g.,

https://www.totalwine.com/deals/mini...ts&aty=1,1,0,0

Thread closed pending Moderator discussion
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator