The different kinds of ‘air-boozers’ on planes – and why all of them should stop

Join the mile dry club instead of knocking back the champagne, writes Ed Cumming. Photo / 123rf

OPINION

Ed Cumming is a Senior Feature Writer for The Telegraph.

Too many travellers overindulge at the airport bar or on their flight and arrive miserably hungover.

On a long-haul flight not long ago, I found myself next to a middle-aged woman who was seated apart from her partner and teenage children. I offered to move, but all parties seemed happy with the arrangement. It was soon clear why. At the first pass of the trolley my neighbour requested a gin and tonic. The steward had barely asked if she wanted ice and lemon with that before she had disappeared the drink, like a magician, and asked for another. After the gin came the wine with dinner, three miniatures in total.

During the night I dozed off, only to be woken by a curious jabbing sensation. I looked up to find that my neighbour was attempting to plug her headphones into me. I gently redirected her to the appropriate socket while she mumbled an apology. I went back to sleep, only to wake again to find her head conked out on my shoulder.

I reflected on the etiquette of shoulder-conking. (As with so many kinds of personal space invasion, it depends a lot on the individual doing the conking. Friends and family yes, Gillian Anderson yes, Bukayo Saka yes, Donald Trump probably not but a good selfie?) I decided to leave her be. When the seatbelt sign dinged for landing she woke with a start, gasping for water. I bid her farewell, wondering whether she was planning to drive the hire car.

There is a school of British thought which holds that planes are an exceptionally good place to get pissed. This is not limited to middle-class mothers huffing the shiraz. There are many tribes of air-boozers. The stag and hen lager and prosecco champions. The Bloody Mary evangelists. The because-it’s-there breakfast champagne enjoyers. The airlines encourage this. The low-cost carriers make money from selling booze; the others know that after a small period of excitement, a drink after take-off is apt to induce snooziness.

It may be best to wait until you arrive at your destination for that first drink. Photo / 123rf

The airports are even worse. The lounges are awash in complimentary help-yourself champagne; in a regular terminal you are rarely more than a few metres from a packed bar .

YouTube, Instagram and TikTok have given birth to a whole genre of videos, showing more or less hammered travellers getting into scrapes mid-flight. Some were drunk beforehand, others have achieved drunkenness in the air. None are edifying or inspirational spectacles. Watch enough of them and fun police thoughts will come to mind.

By now we ought to have freed ourselves from the excitement of drinking on a flight. This is not to be a killjoy, but to prioritise superior forms of drinking. If you are going on holiday, you are by definition heading somewhere with better drinks. The first drink of a holiday is one of the finest drinks going. Why waste it on a budget airline, or next to a man in a tutu in departures?

There are few feelings more depressing than arriving at a hotel at noon, already hungover from the flight. If you are travelling for work, surely you want to stay true to your behaviour on the ground. You wouldn’t prepare for a meeting at home by drinking a bottle of sauvignon blanc before going to sleep in an air-conditioning vent. Why chance it in the air?