I concede !
Totally illegal to carry on and serve drink to yourself !
If you can cajole or convince a member of the cabin staff to serve it for you, then it is not illegal !

El Grifo

"first-class or business-class passenger? "

That´d be a new one at Ryanair....

I believe there is a concerted move (today's Times) to pack alcohol purchases at the airport into bags that require a knife or scissors to open. The theory is that since no knives or scissors can get past security (!), the passengers won't have access to the booze until landside at destination. Not before time.

I might be accused of being racist although I am Irish but the flight did originate in Glasgow.

You know it has a certain reputation......

Yes mods ban me for suggesting Scots might be excitable. Given we Irish are as pure as the driven snow with alcohol taken.
Plus you English who never drink much.

Racedos on the right track.If you must have "duty free"have it presented at the destination on production of your receipt.Why oh why do people have to (a)get drunk before a flight?(b)feel the need for alcohol all the time unless they are alcoholics? When I was working away quite a few of us would meet at a certain terminal bar and have a couple of pints as our destinations were more than likely alcohol free countries but we were never rowdy or caused fights.Think its just a generation thing like tattoos and funny hair styles maybe eventually people like this will change!!

I'll let it slide just this once, as my heritage is Scottish, and I wouldn't want to seem excitable...

As Patrick Cargill (the Scots doctor in the Blood Donor sketch) said; "We're not all Rob Roys, you know".

On-arrival duty free sales are normal in Australia and New Zealand, partly for reasons of economy and safety. So one would only have to end departure duty free. But I doubt that it will happen--commercial imperatives are imperative.

That's a bit like saying "close all the pubs because people get drunk and occasionally fight in them".

How about enforce the existing law which makes it an offence to be drunk in public, and an offence to serve alcohol to someone who is obviously drunk?

I'm a tad mystified because in the report it states:

"Once the plane landed and more alcohol was consumed..."

It is not illegal to consume your own alcohol on a UK flight, or any othere European one afaik. However it is, I imagine, against all airlines' Ts and Cs so by extension doing so after a warning could be construed as failing to abide by the lawful commands of the Captain.
Dury Free, however is quite different.Bear in mind that people tend to call anything bought in the terminsl as 'duty free'. Of couse it isn't in Eu and domeatic flights, it's just discounted a bit. Real Duty Free is covered by Customs regulations that are law, and you aren't allowed to open it until through customs at the other end.

Not really news, is it?

Hand bottle to unconnected passenger next to you, they didn't buy it and they serve you and hand you back the bottle. You then do same for them. Simples.

The courts don't seem to understand the threat to safety. A "brawl" at FL310 is a bit different to one outside Revs on a Friday night.

Fine of a grand and ban them from every airline for 5 years.

On a flight 18 months ago where went to a Republic of Ireland football game in Europe joining Irish mates who drag me along, flight back the pilot announced no alcohol would be served as he figured everybody had already had their fill over the weekend. Probably a decent idea under the circumstances as lots of sore heads already, lots of water was being drunk though and lots of sleeping.

Landed at Gatwick and when waiting for gate Pilot came on and just said "To the Irish Football fans, from my crew and myslef we want to say Thank You, you have lived up to your reputation, it has been a really great pleasure having you on board. We were not expecting such an easy flight." That got a big cheer and singing until we got to the gate.

Been saying that for years. I survived many long flights as pax on RAF Transport Command with nothing stronger than instant coffee or weak orange squash. Never going to happen of course, the aviation industry has a vested financial interest in flogging drink to passengers as they hang around in airports.

It's part of pilot training not to use alcohol. And part of that argument is that the effects of alcohol are exaggerated with the higher cabin altitude.
So pilot are forewarned - but passengers are not.
Until passengers are alerted to this, we shouldn't be too critical when they loose control.
No one should expect that the amount of alcohol that they can handle at ground level will be the same as when flying.

Trouble is 99.9% of us know how to use alcohol responsibly, you can't blame the CC or ban it altogether because of a small minority. Just have to prosecute and ban these idiots

Article in Flight 35 years ago by the excellent and sadly late Anthony Smith...

Scrolled waaaay too long for this.