Nicolas49
Sorry if what I posted is unclear hopefully I can clear this up.
The flights in question were quite some time ago and were from LHR to BFS which you may remember were equally shared between the two predominate British airlines. These flights departed on alternate hours from the then Belfast lounge.
I arrived in the lounge at what I thought slightly too late for the earlier flight but as I was passing the check in desks the ground staff from the other airline (earlier flight) asked if I was going to Belfast (which was slightly ironic as that was the only destination from that lounge at that time) and would I like to go on their flight, I replied in the affirmative. After the usual examination of my ticket and questions about checked in luggage of which I had none they issued a boarding card.
Whilst this was going on another ground staff member was on the handheld radio to the aircraft appraising them of the situation ticket.
They then left me to walk across the apron to the aircraft which was about 50 yards away. This was in full view of the cockpit so I assume that the captain observed me walking across to the stairway and made the assumption that I was drunk based on the following.
I was late. I wasn’t but did he know why.
I was wearing only a tee shirt in the middle of January and it was fairly cold. I never carry a coat when traveling if I can help it.
I was unshaven. Having been traveling for 20/24 hours this would be fairly normal.
The fact that it was a Belfast flight may also be an influence with some of the preconceived notions there are about the Irish social habits.
I arrived at the top of the steps and the seating layout was such that there was no bulkhead on the aft side of the door so you are in full view of the assembled passengers when you step in the doorway. The cockpit door was open (You remember the good old days).and both pilots were looking into the passenger compartment.
I was in the process of showing the boarding card to the FA when she said the captain thinks you are too drunk to travel. As you can imagine I was somewhat taken aback and asked just how did he arrive at that conclusion? Her reply was something along the lines the captain thinks it so that’s that. I could see that I was getting nowhere particularly as the captain and first officer were listening to the exchange and offering no explanation or any help to the FA which I thought was somewhat cowardly. I know all the reasons for the flight crew not getting into arguments but this was on the ground. So as I was in no particular hurry anyway I told the captain (over the FA’s shoulder) that he was wrong and then went back to the terminal.
I have a lot of friends who are commercial pilots and I can’t think on any of them that would act in this way, if they did I doubt they would be friends of mine.
The captain was wrong for whatever reasons.