Why some think an airline alcohol limit could help

Alcohol hits differently on planes, so for travelers who do plan to imbibe, it’s a good idea to be cognizant of your intake and to pace yourself.
A hard limit on airplane and airport alcohol service may not be feasible, but flight attendants say alcohol is often at the center of bad behavior onboard.
If you want to drink to take the edge of, try to come up with other coping or relaxation mechanisms for while you’re traveling.

Should airlines and airport bars limit how much alcohol you get served while you travel? Michael O’Leary, CEO of European low-cost airline Ryanair, seems to think so, and I’m inclined to agree.

In an interview with the Independent’s travel podcast last month, O’Leary said drunk passengers have been and continue to be a real problem for airlines.

“I think the real challenge is: flight delays are up at a record high this summer, so people are spending time in airports drinking before they board aircraft,” he said, according to the Independent. “We need to have a ban on airports – not (on) selling alcohol but limiting the amount of alcohol that can be sold to any passenger to two alcoholic drinks.

It may not be such a bad idea in the abstract, although at least one flight attendant told me it could be hard to implement without annoying a lot of passengers. But everyone acknowledges air rage is an issue, and onboard alcohol consumption is a legitimate contributing factor.

A hard limit may not be feasible, but alcohol hits differently on planes, so for travelers who do plan to imbibe, it’s a good idea to be cognizant of your intake and to pace yourself.

How air travel and alcohol interact

It’s a pretty well-known fact that alcohol often affects people more strongly when they’re above sea level.

“Your metabolism can be affected in a very different way by the alcohol being in that more confined space and the altitude,” Peggy Swarbrick, a professor and the Associate Director of the Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies and ScarletWell director at Rutgers University in New Jersey told me. “Alcohol affects cognition, reaction time, judgment, what you say, what you do. Definitely, people are more uninhibited.”

Swarbrick said drinking before or during a flight could also make you feel more tired or woozy than you would on the ground.

I’ve noticed in my own travels that alcohol also usually just doesn’t taste as good up there. The low humidity and pressure on an airplane can affect your senses of smell and taste, so whatever you’re served will probably be less flavorful than it would be at a bar on the ground.

Airlines acknowledge this and some conduct onboard taste tests of their wine and spirit offerings as they tweak their menus.

Should there be limits on airplane and airport alcohol service?

Swarbrick certainly thinks O’Leary is thinking correctly on this.

“The less the better for everyone all around. I know (airlines) want to make money, but there’s so many problems with alcohol that we know,” she said. “In the end it’s going to have other kinds of societal and negative impacts on people financially.”

Rich Henderson, a flight attendant at a major U.S. airline and one of the authors of the Two Guys on a Plane blog, told me alcohol is often at the center of bad behavior onboard and thinks there should be limits.

“It’s definitely more drunk passengers that are an issue than sober ones, that’s for sure,” he said. “If they seem even a little bit agitated, it’s endgame for you. We’re not going to fly around with you in a metal tube where you can have a meltdown, and then what are we going to do with you? These problems are a lot easier handled on the ground.”

But, Henderson acknowledged, actually implementing an airline drink limit could be impractical for other reasons.

“If you have a 300-pound guy who’s having two Bud Lights, he’s probably not going to feel anything and not change his behavior in any way. If you have someone with a smaller frame having two vodka sodas, that can knock them down,” he said. Plus, he’s not sure exactly how it would be tracked, or how servers at various airport bars could successfully monitor how much a passenger is being served across terminal locations.

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A limit in writing, Henderson said, may actually frustrate travelers more than it helps.

“I personally don’t mind it being up to us on when to cut them off,” he said. “Most of us are strategic in finding ways to slow someone down, we forget drink orders, or we look busy doing something else and apologize for the delay or whatever, and we can slow people down that way without having to make it a hard cutoff.”

In the last five years, Henderson said, he’s probably only had to cut off one or two passengers from drinking completely.

“I think people fail to realize how black and white it is. You cannot be intoxicated on an airplane. That’s an FAA regulation,” he said. “Not that anyone’s trying to take the fun out of your vacation, but it’s once again going back to everyone being safe.”

Swarbrick noted that alcohol’s effects on cognition can make it more difficult to people to respond during an onboard emergency in addition making them more inclined toward bad behavior.

Can you drink your own alcohol on planes?

No. It’s illegal to bring you own alcohol onboard to consume while you fly, despite what all kinds of internet “hack” videos might tell you.

Instead, Swarbrick said, if you want to drink to take the edge of, try to come up with other coping or relaxation mechanisms for while you’re traveling. And if there’s some other reason for wanting a drink, go for a beverage without alcohol instead.

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