15 Sky Chef employees busted at JFK for stealing minis from AA

[Barfbag]

So I take it you don't take care of an employee who is non reving?

I've been in this business for too many years and four airlines later this aspect of the business hasn't changed. Employees and contractors think of a plane sitting at the gate as an open bar. I personally know people that come to work only because they have access to the open bar and can't drink in front of their spouses at home. They take a booze break and then go back to their work area, or even worse head for their cars for the hour long commute home.

These arrests are a step in the right direction, but it's only a fraction of what's leaving the airport via AA employees and contractors. Of course the media and the security hounds will always seek ways to tie stealing booze to a terrorist plot of some sort. Rediculous, this is capitalism, there is a product that has a market and the product finds its way to the market., illegally.

Note : Flight crews are primarliy responsible for passenger safety, not for passing out company property for free to non-revs.

Inflight Liquor should be sold at the gate area through vending machines, and airport bars . You want a lime wedge and a cup of ice on board, we can handle that.

That would solve many of these problems overnight and give AA the much needed revenue controls they seek.

 

[jimntx]

I have never experienced flight crew members taking liquor "for after hours." And, yes on occasion we comp a drink for a non-rev fellow employee, but I've never seen wholesale theft from employees--not even rampers. Those "open bars" sitting at the gate rarely have catering carts on them. In fact I would like it just fine if catering would show up with the carts before we get to the plane. It's a real hassle for them to not show up until boarding has already begun. I have no place to stand in F/C, and the flight attendants in the back (on the MD-80) are supposed to stop the boarding of the seats behind the aft galley door while that door is open. (I guess to prevent passengers from escaping via the catering truck??? )

We are supposed to "seal" the carts with plastic lock ties at the end of the flight, but most of us don't bother except in Canada where there are fines for not doing so. I used to be semi-religious about following the sealing procedure until I saw a catering truck driver one day take one of my carts off the plane to the catering truck. The first thing he did in the truck was yank the lock tie off the cart and pull the beer insert out and put the beer in an insert that was half-full of ice. I reported it to Corporate Security. They told me (in a bored tone of voice) that unless I could provide the driver's name and the license number of his truck there was nothing they could do. I decided, if they don't care, I don't care.

The only thing I have ever seen the rampers do with the carts is look in the food cart to see if there are any of the baked on board cookies left--which are going to be discarded as trash anyway.