Low on Alcohol

Got Ya,
I knew the topic would grab you, has this happened to any other fellow travellers, flight VS 43 20th May 2006.
4 hours to go, announcement "due to shortages of alcohol for the return flight the bars were now being closed"
What was that all about, do Virgin not stock up in Vegas, was there some other motive, dare I say enough for the staff in the hotel,......... oooooops.
Shortly after I saw staff scurring along from coach to PE with armfuls of unopened wine.
Strange but true.
Please be aware I am not a drinker but of the 370 others on board I am sure they would have liked to be refreshed during the rest of the flight.

Oh, and no mention of crowd trouble or other behaviour issues as to why no booze.

Anyone any ideas or insider knowledge is it worth a letter to VS?

Steve

[Nottingham Nick]

Is it worth writing a letter to Virgin accusing the staff of the flight of stealing wine to drink in their hotel after the flight, because you saw a staff member carrying some bottles after the bar had closed?

Hmm... tough call..[}:)]

Are you suggesting that the staff stopped serving booze to the passengers so they could steal it for their own use?

If so, with 18 cabin crew lead by a manager and supervisors that's a pretty stupid suggestion is it not?

I would get onto VS and ask them what's going on as I agree it's not good enough.

Regards

John

No no no, you seem to have put too much emphasis on the staff bit.
What I am interested in was the alleged running out of drinks.
The staff bit was just an add on of what I saw, no accusations.
Sorry for that, escpecially you Nick..... the law and all that.
Steve 821

If they were genuinely running low the fact that you say the crew were seen moving wine to what you say PE is more like to be Upper Class - to provide those who have paid the extra money a better service in the circumstances.

It isn't unthinkable to run out of alcohol - mayber catering was late to the aircraft at LGW and rather than take a delay for a few bottles of alcohol they decided to go without it.

If they didn't have enough alcohol to cater for the whole flight, how do you suggest the cabin crew determine which passegners get it and which don't??

Sounds to me like they did the right thing!

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by steve821
was there some other motive, dare I say enough for the staff in the hotel,......... oooooops.

Steve

That, to me, is an accusation of theft. If you have any evidence that it is true, then it is certainly sackable, and I am sure VS would take it very seriously.

If you don't have any such evidence, then it is a slur on the integrity of the whole staff, especially the supervisors among them.

I won't comment any further on the bar closing, as lipstick has covered that.

I'm not saying this because of the job I do... there are certain accusations that IMHO, shouldn't be made lightly - even in jest.

Nick

Originally posted by steve821
was there some other motive, dare I say enough for the staff in the hotel,......... oooooops.
Shortly after I saw staff scurring along from coach to PE with armfuls of unopened wine.

I've been guilty in the past of typing stuff that could offend people so now I think before I type. There are staff members who read this forum and if I were one of them I'd be incensed by what you've written. My feeling is that this was not your aim but all the same, it's in black and white and difficult to ignore.

Again, I think it's out of order that a full service airline stops serving alcohol half way through a transatlantic flight because they've not got enough for the return.

Regards

John

^Again if this was the case which i very much doubt, it doesn't sound 'out of order' to me, it sounds like a good business decision by the crew on board.

Imagine if you were a pax on the return and told sorry there's not a drop of alcohol on this flight.

Yes OK lipstick perhaps "out of order" is a bit much as it seems like a one off and of course, "with 4 hours to go" isn't half way through the flight as I suggested. It's still poor service though which does warrant some sort of explanation.

So, if the plane wasn't catered correctly at LGW for any reason does the facility not exist in Vegas to correct it?

Regards

John

Originally posted by JAT74L
So, if the plane wasn't catered correctly at LGW for any reason does the facility not exist in Vegas to correct it?

ISTR that VS don't have contracts in place for re-stocking the bars at "downline" locations, only for replenishing meals and other service items.

The outbound crew always know to hold an amount of bar items back for the return crew, and from previous crew comments on V-F, it usually works out about 60% consumed on a daylight flight, and 40% on an overnight flight. Certain flights are also known to consume more booze, so the bar stock may be higher on certain trips.

Lipstick's point about catering delays is a good one - do you delay the flight, or do you accept what you have onboard and depart? I guess if you were missing a large number of main meals, then you would be tempted to stay put until the meals can be delivered. But, for an extra bar cart, probably less so.

I know it seems very odd for no downline bar restocking on long-haul sectors such as VS fly. Other airlines can do it - I know that UA replenish the bar cart stock on all their flights out of London, for example.

However, the airline then needs to have a "bonded store" contract in place with the caterer, to avoid paying duties on the drinks in the downline countries.

The airline will select it's choice of bar items, and is then responsible for having these dispersed throughout their network (at least to the points where they take food and drinks on board). The caterer will hold the alcoholic drinks "in bond" until they are ready to be assigned to a flight and loaded into carts.

The larger caterers, such as LSG SkyChefs, whom VS use, can offer bonded facilities at most of their locations, but as I said, it's whether the airline wants to use them.

VS currently chooses not to do this, and loads all it's bar supplies from the London end. It probably helps with logistics for an operation the size of VS (still relatively small in terms of number of flights operated per day, when compared to a BA or a large US carrier).

Now that VS uses LSG for almost all it's catering worldwide (having used a range of different caterers previously), it may be possible for this to change in the future, but I'm sure that VS would want to closely examine the costs first. (For example, in the future it may become more cost effective to ship the drinks as cargo to the downline location, rather than carry it as additional weight on the outbound sector.)

Cheers,
Mike

Hello ,
If the crew are going into Premium class , with bottles of
wine it's proberly for the Upper class passengers (WHO PAY ALOT) . I have done many
vegas flight's and passengers binge drink , this is hard to control as It's usaully big groups and they come to the galley asking for drinks and we as crew don't know if these drinks are being put into passengers hand luggage for there little after parties .

SO PLEASE STOP MOANING ABOUT THE CREW , AS AND EX VIRGIN
CREW MEMBER WE ALL WORKED VERY HARD ON THE VEGAS FLIGHTS
AND IF YOU WHERE SO CONCERNED ABOUT THE ALCOHOL , WHY NOT ASK
INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING ON V-FLYER AND ASK THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR THE AIRLINE NOT A BUNCH OF PEOPLE , WHO IF THEY COULD WOULD SERVE THEM SELVES / FLY THE PLANE ...I'm sure charter airlines fly to vegas .

how long can you people drag this out?[|)]

Originally posted by peartree
SO PLEASE STOP MOANING ABOUT THE CREW , AS AND EX VIRGIN
CREW MEMBER WE ALL WORKED VERY HARD ON THE VEGAS FLIGHTS
AND IF YOU WHERE SO CONCERNED ABOUT THE ALCOHOL , WHY NOT ASK
INSTEAD OF COMPLAINING ON V-FLYER AND ASK THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR THE AIRLINE NOT A BUNCH OF PEOPLE , WHO IF THEY COULD WOULD SERVE THEM SELVES / FLY THE PLANE ...I'm sure charter airlines fly to vegas .

Eh?

John

I don't think it's uncommon for this to happen. It's happened twice on LAS flights that I have been on. The consumption of alcohol on vegas flights is high compared to some routes.

It is pretty normal for the bars to be closed on Vegas flights.

For some reason due to the large amount of stag parties travelling the start to binge drink as soon as you take off.

The customers start queuing out of the galleys just to get another Stella or glass of wine.

The crew have to decide when enough is enough for everyones saftey as it is illegal to be drunk onboard an aircraft.

The drinks bars are spread throughout the four galleys on the 747 so the crew were probably just distributing the left over drinks so that the inbound crew had what ever was remaining evenly distributed.

I am sure if we charged for the alcohol then it would not go down so quickly.

Some flights to BGI, UVF, ANU are the same, also on the LAX flights can get get a bit out of hand.

As the alcohol is all roundtripped from the UK the crew have to judge when stocks are running low.

More often than not its handful of people who ruin it for everyone else.

Please dont make it out for the crew to be in the wrong for closing the bars.

Originally posted by steve821
...Please be aware I am not a drinker but of the 370 others on board I am sure they would have liked to be refreshed during the rest of the flight.

And as for the above statement there is plenty of soft drinks, juices and water to keep everyone refreshed for the rest of the flight.


{Edited by Bazz to make quote clearer}

[preiffer]

I could go one further than Declan here. [:I]

Although I'm certainly one to enjoy a glass of wine or two with my meal, the "rational" person inside of me questions whether a confined metal tube at 37,000ft is really the place for ANY alcohol to be consumed... [:?]

Originally posted by preiffer
I could go one further than Declan here. [:I]

Although I'm certainly one to enjoy a glass of wine or two with my meal, the "rational" person inside of me questions whether a confined metal tube at 37,000ft is really the place for ANY alcohol to be consumed... [:?]

Agreed.. but such a change would be so difficult to introduce and enforce, unless there was widespread agreement, and very strict enforcement. More likely would be a 'maximum of two drinks per pax' type rule.. but I would imagine this would lead to the opening of duty free purchases after the allowed onboard two drinks.
A total ban on alcohol consumption would be a radical step, and perhaps would increase the imbibement of pax pre-departure.. therefore contributing to more rowdy behaviour, rather than less.

Hmm.. difficult one.

Originally posted by declansmith
For some reason due to the large amount of stag parties travelling the start to binge drink as soon as you take off.

...and that really is the crux of it, isn't it?

It seems that many Brits don't know when to stop, and a night out isn't any good unless they can't remember what happened after 11pm, end up flashing their bits, wake up in a police cell or looking at a ceiling that's not their own, or get in a fight in the queue for a toxic doner kebab.

I'm a fan of the current Amstel advertising campaign, with witty straplines such as "Take time with your beer. The pub is not on fire." and "Happy hour is a nice gesture, not a challenge." [8D]

Can't we just have a good time?

BTW, good, measured reply Declan.

Cheers!
Mike

Originally posted by preiffer
I could go one further than Declan here. [:I]

the "rational" person inside of me questions whether a confined metal tube at 37,000ft is really the place for ANY alcohol to be consumed... [:?]

Easy Paul,
This is one of the reasons for getting me in this metal tube[:I]:D

Iain

BTW, good, measured reply Declan.

Yes I'd like to echo that sentiment.

I can assure you that the majority of crew really want the customers to get off the flight happy and we dont want to be closing bars early as it does make our life harder having to deny drinks to people.


We are just looking out for our colleagues bringing the flight home as well as the customers, so that they can enjoy a nice drink on the way home.

Going off topic slightly (but not enough to start a new thread), what is the acceptable limit in the US for driving.

I'm picking up a hire car at MCO, but would like a glass of wine with my meal, or a beer prior to it.

I think it is relatively low. However I think that technically your car insurance is invalid if you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol - I imagine that would ot necessarily require you to be over the limit.

Given that the main meals tend to be served early in most transatlantic flights I would have thought that the average person would have metabolised out pretty much all of the alcohol in single drink before the end of the flight.

[Nottingham Nick]

Originally posted by A380
Going off topic slightly (but not enough to start a new thread), what is the acceptable limit in the US for driving.

IMHO - the acceptable limit is NIL. Driving in a strange country, on the wrong side of the road, feeling crap having just sat in a metal tube for 10 hours is hard enough anyway, without having any booze inside you. (And that opinion has nothing to do with the job I do.)

It is your call though. The LEGAL limit in Florida, and most US States, is Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of 0.08%. How that compares with the UK limit, I have no idea, and don't really fancy putting it to the test. ;)

Nick

Going off topic slightly (but not enough to start a new thread), what is the acceptable limit in the US for driving.

I agree with Nick on this one.
You'd be tired after the long flight, strange car, different side of the road, maybe irritable kids/passengers, American drivers going too fast, too close to the car in front, over and undertaking, the list can go on and on.
Do the sensible thing, choose a hotel near the airport for the first night and pick the car up the following morning.

Back to the original thread.

I'm sure that the crew were just acting in the best interests of both their passengers and also thinking of the crew/passengers of the return flight and that there was no underhand/hidden reasons for closing the bar, but....

I am sure if we charged for the alcohol then it would not go down so quickly.

VS do charge for Alcohol.... It's in the price of the ticket, just one of the reasons so many of our choose to fly VS.

It is pretty normal for the bars to be closed on Vegas flights.

If this is the case then VS need to put more drinks on the plane.

The crew have to decide when enough is enough for everyones saftey as it is illegal to be drunk onboard an aircraft.

I totally agree with this statement, but don't make everyone suffer by closing the bar. I'm a small drinker and I maybe have 3 or 4 drinks over the length of the flight. I would very annoyed if the bar was shut early due to a few individuals when I may have only had one or 2 drinks.
Don't punish the majority for the behavior of the minority.

As the alcohol is all roundtripped from the UK the crew have to judge when stocks are running low.

I understand this answer, but surely with all airlines trying to reduce weight and therefore fuel costs then there is a good case for only stocking for one leg of the flight and then restocking for the return.


Now completely off topic and nothing to with with planes, trains or any other forms of transport.

Last nights Dave Gilmour concert at the Royal Albert Hall was awesome. It even included 'special guest' David Bowie performing the Pink Floyd Classic 'Arnold Layne'.
The show was being recorded for an eventual DVD release. If you like music then this DVD will be a must.