British Airways Pushing Wine on International Flight--Is this Normal?

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07/12/2014 19:51

Subject: British Airways Pushing Wine on International Flight--Is this Normal?

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Anonymous

Recently (i.e. in the past 4 days) I took a trip to Nigeria with my family. We chose British Airways because it was (relatively) cheap and convenient from Dulles to London, then from London to Nigeria.

It was me, DS14, DD10 and my wife. We thought we had seats all together, but when we got there they changed the seats around and DS was pushed up a few rows while the rest of us stayed the same (this is from Dulles->London). I should mention this was a redeye flight as well.

I noticed early on that the flight attendants were pushing their alcoholic (free) offerings really heavily. Literally 10 minutes into the flight (I should mention, and 8 hour flight) they came around with the cart asking if anyone wanted a drink and specifically advertising their wine selection. I swear every time someone ordered a coke, or water, or any non-alcoholic drink the flight attendants would get all bothered and huffy- they clearly were doing it for the alcohol.

After they come around again, my son comes back and tells me he is annoyed and the flight attendants keep trying to get him to take a wine despite him saying no thank you. Knowing my son (often a bit shy and awkward in wierd situations) I think that he probably didnt even say, "Hey I'm 14" and I guess they just thought he was a young looking 18 year old, but when I tell him to let them know his age, he says he did both times and they still tried to get him to take some alcohol. Keep in mind tis is maybe an hour into the flight and they have come around twice already.

The next time they come around I go up to DS' seat as they approach, just to kind of say 'Hey, I'm his dad, he's 14 and I don't appreciate you trying to serve him alcohol, something that is illegal both in Britain and the U.S. at his age." They come up and I go through my spiel (though, I did add in a tiny bit about how I did not think trying to get their passengers drunk on a redeye flight was a good idea). They then tried to reason with me that wine was not a big deal and that I was overreacting, and also said they were pushing the wine because they could not carry it over to another flight and they had to give it all out. I stressed not to offer it to him again. Of course they continued to until we got to London (he, of course, declined).

The second leg they also pushed wine, but luckily we were in the same row and if they looked like they were going to offer him wine I gave them a mean look.

So my question to more experienced international travelors is:

1) Is this normal for international flights to have a focus on alcohol? To serve it to kids?

2) Do most international flights have free alcohol? Or did I end up in the Alcoholics Anonymous of flights?

3) Is there any way to report this to the airline/the regulatory commissions that oversees airlines? I get that the British drinking age is 18, not 21, but my son is younger then 18, and does not even look 18, so he should not have been asked, and they should have stopped offering alcohol to him when I went up and made sure his age was clear, if not earlier.