Cathay Pacific Cracking Down On Flight Attendant Theft (Including Of… Ice Cream?!?)

I work with a reputed hotel chain and we have employees wearing suits and uniforms. While the guys in suits are rarely checked while leaving, the guys in uniforms are regularly checked. You'll often see them reprimanded for simple things like a hotel branded matchbox or just a bottle of drinking water. We follow strict inventory for pretty much everything in the hotel and discrepancies are heavily feared by the staff and intensely investigated by management. I can't imagine an airline behaving differently in a cut-throat market.

Imagine you have an outbuilding next to your house. You set up a small hotel in it, where you provide toiletries in small bottles for guests. You have people who service the rooms. It seems a shame to throw away the almost-unused shampoos and half-used soaps. So do you allow the servicing staff to take the leftovers? If you do, then how do you distinguish that they have opened a new one, poured a little away, and claim it is "used"? Or "accidentally overstocked" etc The only feasible answers are: a) ban anything being taken b) Eskimo's idea of detailed declaration, with checks - rare or not depending on estimated extent of abuse.

@Anthony The CX crews I know had ample time to eat and rest and even go out shopping and sightseeing. I pretty sure crews have to than enough time to eat between outport flights. If not, I would doubt all CX crew have had enough rest. Given a meal allowance isn't inteded for crews the cheap out and get extra cash. It's for meals. Bad personal time and financial management is their own problem. Ever heard of words other than stealing office supplies? Because that is the only word. I never heard of any office gives you supplies to take home everytime you work late. Don't have time to buy pen and paper for the kids, here take some. 2L of water is office supplies. CX just chose to enforce it. I can't believe how messed up many people's logic is.

CX staff are very hardworking and flight crews are provided with no out port meals but an allowance. Water taken in consumable quantities (no more than 2L should be included in the policy but is not. Crew don’t always have time to eat on busy flights and once again should be allowed to take a consumable amount at outports. Flights deplaning in Hong Kong for HK based crew should not have no allowance for consumables as staff will be going home. People often believe crew have ample time to eat their own meals and rest but my personal observations are that this is often not the case.

Certain countries including Australia and New Zealand have extremely strict quarantine laws. No food is allowed off aircraft and has to be destroyed after arrival. Can understand Cathay being tough but they also need to be aware of people being set up by others. Common sense should apply to removing items.