Vino Is Verboten

June 10, 2010

in Airport Stories

Whatever you do, do NOT take a bottle of wine from the fridge at the Air New Zealand Business/First lounge at Auckland International Airport! Even if you ask a waitress if it is OK (and she says No Problem), you will be confronted by the Manager who will ask if you are travelling alone. And if you are (Heaven forbid), you will be told that you are NOT allowed to actually take the bottle to your seat as you “might become intoxicated”!

Imagine this – you pay thousands of dollars for your ticket and you are treated NOT as a drunk, but as a POSSIBLE drunk because you drink wine rather than beer and spirits. So they take the bottle away and you have to walk and walk and walk back to the fridge to get a refill every time your flute glass is finished (what’s that, 4 tablespoons?). I envy the people who fly Emirates or Qantas, I bet they are not told to drink only one glass in case they get drunk.

Think about this – what if you went to a restaurant alone and ordered a bottle of wine and they poured you a glass and then took the bottle away in case you became drunk, and you had to ask every time you wanted a top up. What a joke Air NZ can be, it takes itself so seriously…

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

david June 10, 2010 at 5:49 pm

how is this a flight from hell? becuase you cant get drunk?

what if another passenger wanted the wine?

get off your lazy ass and get your own drink its not hard, dont be selfish share the bottle

besides it happens in every lounge i have been in (Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, yes Qantas and Emirates)

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Smiling Charmer June 11, 2010 at 1:24 pm

Flight from hell?!?!?!?!?!?!?

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blah June 13, 2010 at 5:10 pm

um…this is probably a legal issue. In Canada, which tends to have similar laws to Australia/New Zealand, it is illegal for any bar patron to have more than two drinks in front of him at once. This means a single patron cannot legally be served either a bottle of wine or a pitcher of draft beer. Probably the waitress either was not aware of this, or didn't realize you were alone. the manager was just doing his job, nothing to complain about.

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xxx April 19, 2013 at 11:41 pm

liar, i've ordered a pitcher in the campus pub while waiting for classmates and i was by myself.

BCIT, not a small school, not in a small town

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