Sitting in the cockpit at LCY one day when a passenger tripped his way to the aircraft carrying a glass, plastic or not, of amber liquid. When asked, cabin staff expressed the opinion that pax was sheeted and that the liquid was neat whisky. A call to Ops elicited the furious response from the airline owner’s wife, she who ran the show, that the passenger must be taken, the crew had no business questioning his condition and that he was a personal friend. So we took him.
I sometimes wonder how often on small airlines, the crew have been implicitly threatened with a firing if they question the condition of certain passengers.