While I yearn for the days where I was young enough for this to be relevant to me, I figure it’s still a topic worth addressing, for any younger OMAAT readers. What’s the minimum age to drink onboard a flight? Well, it’s not always that straightforward…
Continue reading: What’s The Minimum Drinking Age On Flights? It Ranges From 16 To 21…
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
“for example, Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow airlines to serve alcohol when flying to & from Saudi Arabia, while over Saudi Arabian airspace”
Not true.
@ Aaron -- I'm curious, what's your understanding, then? Alcohol is fully allowed on all flights to and from Saudi Arabia with no limits, or...?
The US is obsessed with alcohol and restricts the drinking age to 21. It even applies to liquor chocolates. Yet here are are.
Ben, regarding Finnair: In Finland, you can buy beer & wine at stores at 18 but hard liquor at 20. However, at bars and restaurants, the age limit is 18 for all drinks. Thus, on Finnair, the limit is also 18 for all alcoholic drinks. (And a limit of 21 does not exist at all.)
Indeed. The only limit I experienced flying out of Saudi Arabia was that no alcohol could be served on the ground pre-departure. Once we took off alcohol was served.
There are now job advertisements hiring for bartenders and mixologists in Saudi, so have to imagine the laws are about to be relaxed in line with the UAE/Kuwait any day now.
I was always of the understanding that International law applies onboard airplanes. And international law doesn't include anything about minimum ages surrounding alcohol consumption.
He'll, U would have informed the flight attendant who pays her paycheque! Customer first!
"On all US-based airlines, the minimum drinking age is 21, even if you’re flying internationally, and/or are originating in a foreign country"
This is NOT true. The drinking age in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands is 18.
I was denied coffee on USAir as a kid... until the lady next to me screamed at the flight attendant. "I KNOW YOU HEARD HIM ASK YOU FOR A COFFEE!!!"
Always amazed how people never call out age discrimination.
The brainwashing propaganda works.
If you need to be 21 to be responsible enough to drink. Why does anyone think 18 is old enough to decide who can play with nuclear weapons. The largest stockpile in the world.
Or the drinking age is 14 if you let that way-too-early beard cover your baby face and wear your older cousins slightly worn in grad school specific fleece. That could be a very very specific situation tho
Saudi Arabia today is not what it was when I came to know it three decades ago, especially since the ascendence of MBS to crown prince status and his
well publicized quarantine/ house arrest of the Saudi movers and shakers in Ritz Carlton hotel in order to solidify his power. To the celebration in the west, SA no longer upholds the stature required as the custodian of Islam's two holiest mosques. It has been slowly accepts the influence and assimilation of "western decadence", namely alcohol and underground prostitution. In public, it is the leader to protect and preserve Muslim interests in the Arab world. Behind the scene, its actions demonstrate otherwise and we all agree "action speaks louder than words".
If you could handle coffee as a kid, props to you. I remember having a tall white chocolate mocha from Starbucks when I was 14, and I felt so sick the rest of the day. Got heart palpitations, nausea, and felt genuinely horrible the rest of the day.
@Baliken - My experience has been similar to what Ben wrote. I have flown to/from Saudi Arabia a few times, with the most recent being in March 2022. I believe the rules vary between airlines, with some airlines being stricter than the laws and not serving any alcohol on all flights to/from KSA (but they otherwise serve it on other routes). The rules may have changed though since my last trip there.
I guess one of the reasons I enjoyed coffee as a kid was the smell. Since I was a kid, I liked everything coffee. Coffee ice cream, coffee cake, pretty much everything coffee related. I was even having mocha frappes from Starbucks in my teenage years 😀
It may be the taboo of it in he US of being 21 onward. People are curious, if you cannot have something, you're more likely to want it. In Europe, children can have alcohol with parental supervision, not in the US. How often do you see 'parties gone arise or destructive' in Europe? Its because they learned from an early age vs in the US, you want to explore and that exploration leads to over drinking. Honestly, the US needs to lower than age or even allow it with supervision.
As others observe, American attitudes towards alcohol are a bit backwards and puritanical (like a lot of American attitudes, tbh). It feeds into the people who don't know how to drink (and act out when they do)...
Pre-Covid, I was on a Cathay Pacific flight from JFK-HKG in PE. Several boarding school kids were traveling and drinking heavily. The crew was very happy to supply them with endless alcohol...
Dasha, according to many who post herein, your statement also applies to all of the U.S. airlines, yes?