Emirates is one of those premium carriers out there with a halo on their head. And why not? They have endless rows of business class on their A380s, and a blinged out cabin in First Class. They certainly innovated with the shower in the air too.
However, sometimes, it does not all work out. Emirates is known to serve premium liquor in their cabins and is one of the biggest buyers of wine in the sky. Or maybe THE biggest buyer.
But this may or may not always translate into premium service from the cabin crew. A traveller in the business class cabin recently, accidentally, caught on to a cabin crew member pouring a champagne glass back into the bottle. He wasn’t even trying to get her on camera, but somehow it did work out like that.
Before the thrifty police come after me, I’d like to clarify a few things about why this situation is plain wrong, and maybe my readers who are more educated about wine can add to this:
- Uncorked Champagne starts the process of going flat a short while after the bottle is opened. That is a part of the reason it is kept on ice to slow down the process. When you’re adding back Champagne that was exposed to the air significantly longer, the rest of the bottle will start to decay quicker.
- You paid for a premium experience, so you definitely do not deserve to drink some champagne which was leftover. While I don’t drink Champagne at home ever so often, it never ever would even cross my mind to put it back in the bottle if someone did not have their fill.
- It is unhygienic. What if someone sneezed around and the virii travelled on to the glass for example?
Most good airlines hence would dump the contents in the sink or the toilet so that it does not get reused. But in this case, someone had other ideas. I don’t know whose fault it was (the airline or the crew acting on their own), but the next time I’m on the carrier, I’d certainly be wondering where the champagne came from in my head. Or perhaps just ask to be served from a new bottle.
What do you feel about the current situation Emirates landed themselves in? Was it a honest good thing gone wrong?
Naam bade darshan chote
This is most common on Jet Airways international flights, infact they go a step further, they use the opened half used bottles from previous sector, if you fly London – Delhi or London – Mumbai you will always observe that even if you are the first one to ask for a champagne or red / white wine, when the attendant brings the bottle to you it is half empty, how could half the bottle be empty when you are the first one to be served and the service has just commenced. On my last flight I enquired and she was embarresed and made some excuse. Next trip same thing happened and at that time I requested for a fresh bottle to be opened and there you could see the huge difference , the bubbles were fresh and sparkling in the champagne while in the previous half bottles it was like water with few bubbles around. 9W is the worst culprit on these kind of things.
@Deepak Kapur, I am not going to try and say anything about Jet Airways here, as long as they are not putting it back in the bottle. I’ve seen them dump bottles myself a lot of times when I am in business and waiting to change before landing. In my little black book, the part about being so thrifty as to put it back in the bottle as if it was syrup or Whiskey which wouldn’t be affected was what got me wondering?
9W I can but I dont expect Emirates to stoop to such levels, alternatively it could be that since the aircraft is on ground in this video, the champagne they serve on ground when passengers just come inside the aircraft maybe some of those unused glasses she is trying to put back as they cant have them in glasses during takeoff. But even those glasses if they afe unused should not be put back in the bottle.
@Deepak Kapur, she really did not have to put the Champagne back and just drain it if unused.
I read online reply by a flight attendant in response to this video, ? This could be a possibility! They wouldn’t do this so openly otherwise.
Hey- I’m a flight attendant – what I think is going on here is that the attendant is probably pouring the unused champagne back in the bottle before take off to then dispose of once the plane takes off. we’re not allowed to pour things out while we’re on the ground. I bet they’re pouring it all back in the bottle so they can then pour it out at cruising instead of dumping it all in the trash can making it all soggy before takeoff… I could be wrong but realistically that’s probably what’s going on. being a flight attendant is all about efficiency and consolidating haha
OMG