Service Post: Never. Fly. Aeroflot.
From The Telegraph:
“It’s not such a big deal if the pilot is drunk,” one representative said, according to the English-language Moscow Times, which had a reporter on board.
“Really, all he has to do is press a button and the plane flies itself. The worst that could happen is he’ll trip over something in the cockpit.”
For me, the final paragraph is the weirdest of all:
“The latest incident sparked heated debate on Russian radio talks shows, with many callers saying they did not believe a pilot needed to be sober to fly a commercial aircraft.”
Maybe those callers were drunk too?
This is not as bad as the time I was waiting to board a DC-3 Aeronica plane on Corn Island, back to Managua. 1983. The pilot, co-pilot, and flight attendant, the first two clearly inebriated, were arguing over whether they had enough fuel to get back. The flight attendant was visibly shaken. I am not making that up. We made it back.
Airflot had a monopoly on domestic flights in Russia when I was growing up. But when I began to visit home from California, I swore not to use it after the very first trip, in 1998. As soon as we were airborn, half of the passengers lit their cigarettes; the cabin quickly became filled with smoke and babies’ cries; guitars and vodka bottles were being passed down the isles. It was a long flight across the Arctic, and I never booked another flight with the airline of my childhood. Now the blacklist has grown: my other taboo airline is Alitalia. They’ve lost my luggage three out of three times I’ve flown with them.
Just curious if any readers have flown Aer Lingus, and if so – any stories?