Airport Drinking

by edward | Aug 27, 2026 | Travel

Knowing how you behave when drunk is essential when Airport Drinking.

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (Bart Everson photo)

Airport Drinking – Going home versus going to jail.

Police body cam recordings fascinate me. Social media creators curate these recordings, presenting the hysterical women who become unhinged during traffic stops and DUIs. The “American State Nationals,” aka “Sovreign Citizens” are particularly amusing. Still, there’s one set of cop videos that absolutely makes my day: airport arrests.
Airport cop bodycam vids remind me of that old show on A&E that followed around Southwest Airlines employees. While the show explored a lot more than troublesome passengers, bodycam scenes cut straight to the chase.

Airports and alcohol

Airport drinking is more than an American tradition. Airports all over the globe offer passengers the opportunity to get likkered up before boarding their flights. The conventional wisdom is, get a glass of wine into a nervous passenger, they relax. Road Warriors know that a Maker’s on the rocks will help them nap on that JFK-ATL flight. It’s all good, so long as drinkers stay in their lanes. When they don’t, well, that’s why there’s good bodycam scenes.
The key to airport drinking is knowing what kind of drunk you are. Airlines don’t care if you’re a bit tipsy when you buckle into your seat. They care when folks are disruptive. Gate agents want those boarding doors closed, so they can roll back that jetway and send those smiling pilots on their way. So long as you don’t cross the line into the Disruption Zone, the only person happier than the gate agent is the bartender you left a nice tip for. (You did tip, didn’t you? Don’t be that person. Tip those folks who deal with your drunk ass.)
Here’s the thing: most folks don’t know what kind of drunk they are in an airport. You go out to dinner with your partner and split a bottle of wine. That’s, what’ 2-3 glasses. If you got to the restaurant in a good mood, you’re likely happier now. Airport drinking just isn’t that dynamic. For starters, flyers don’t eat well. At best, maybe you grabbed something in the food court on the concourse. Sometimes, you’re just munching on a bag of Zapps or Cheez-its while you’re knocking back Tito’s bloody marys.

Things take a turn

That’s when you’re the most vulnerable. You get that buzz on the phone, telling you that your flight’s delayed 30 minutes because of weather in Chicago or something. It’s a clear night at BWI or Lurve Field, and you’re impaired. You’re not processing the whole weather thing.
You want to go home.
You tell everyone in earshot you want to go home. You get loud, possibly belligerent. The gate agent asks you to lower your voice.
But you want to go home.
You cross that line where the airline employees just get sick of your nonsense. They cancel your boarding pass and rebook you for a flight the next day, when (hopefully) you’ve sobered up.
This is where the cops enter the scene and the bodycam begins. The cops ask you to leave the concourse, get a taxi to a motel, and try again the next day. Those who don’t end up in jail.

What kind of drunk are you?

Lucky Dogs, a New Orleans classic at MSY (moodiedavittreport.com photo)

Knowing how you behave when you’ve had too much to drink is important. That knowledge can make the difference in whether or not you’re able to come back to a restaurant, or if you get 86’d from the pub. It absolutely will determine if you’ll get home on your return flight.
Are you a loud drunk? Even if you’re a happy drunk, loud can be problematic at the airport. For those gate agents, it’s about disruption. If you’re a problem in the open air of the gatehouse, they’re thinking about how much of an inconvenience you’ll be to everyone around you when you sit in 15B.
Are you an emotional drunk? If you’re crying for whatever reason, you’re not listening. They worry you won’t comply when instructed to do things.
Are you a staggering drunk? Oh, hail no, if you’re not able to get up and down the aisle, you’ll be a problem in the event of an evacuation.

Forewarned is forearmed

Ask your friends. Ask your partner. Record yourself when you go out. You may find out that your fun-person persona after three drinks while the game’s on at the pub won’t cut it at Gate C19. You need to know that before you’re led out of the airport in cuffs.

Italy Trip Travel Thoughts

by edward | Nov 4, 2025 | Travel

First of a couple of posts on our trip to Italy last month, starting with travel thoughts.

Travel to Rome, first leg, MSY-ATL

Italy – Travel Thoughts

We did Italy for eight days in October, visiting Rome, Florence, and Venice. Neither my wife nor I had been to Italy before. Now that she’s been to London and Paris, Rome was high up on her travel list. While I don’t mind Summer trips to Europe, she insisted on a cooler-temperature visit. For a number of reasons, that meant October. We like to keep trips to ten days or less; she doesn’t like leaving the cats for longer. I get that. The trip was a lot of fun, a lot of stuff packed into those eight days. I’ll be blogging about various aspects of the trip, food on NOLA Foodie Guy, tours and specific sights on NOLA History Guy, and political thoughts on YatPundit.

Itinerary

The plan:

• Day 1 – Travel to Rome
• Day 2 – Arrive in Rome, casual exploration of the city
• Day 3 – Colosseum and Roman Forum Tour
• Day 4 – Vatican City Tour
• Day 5 – Train to Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia (David)
• Day 6 – Train to Venice, sightseeing
• Day 7 – Gondola ride/tour, St. Mark’s, walking around
• Day 8 – Travel home

Let’s talk about days one and eight. Train travel in a separate post.

Outbound Flights

We traveled MSY-ATL-FCO on Day 1 on Delta. Flights were, by airport standards, uneventful. We certainly didn’t anticipate the continued government shutdown when booking this over the summer. While other cities experienced grief related to the shutdown and the air traffic control system, we were spared at home and Atlanta. Our original itinerary was to take a (relatively) late flight from ATL to FCO (Rome Da Vinci) that would put us in around 11am. Delta changed that flight twice, and we ended up with an itinerary that put us into FCO at 7am.

Now, at face value, that might not sound so bad, but when you spend the night in a plane, the first thing one really wants upon arrival is a shower and a nap. Problem is, hotel check-in times are usually 3pm-4pm. When you arrive early in the morning, that shower and nap aren’t in the cards. It was impossible to fix this–Delta cancelled the later flights.

The flights themselves were OK. MSY-ATL was the usual hour-or-so hop, with fortunately no bumps. We arrived on “D” with the long flight going out on “E.” So, we could easily walk to the next gate. (Even though we both only brought a roll-aboard, we checked them through to FCO).

Delta Comfort

The itinerary had about 80 minutes between flights. As ATL layovers go, that’s tight. In fact, the Arby’s on ATL “E” was so slow, we had to skip grabbing food. I picked up a big bag of Cheez-Its on the way to the gate.

We boarded the A330 in “Sky Priority.” Delta implements facial recognition on international flights out of ATL. This speeds up the process a good bit. The A330 seats 2-4-2. We sat in A-B. I grab the window, so wife can get out to the bathroom without bothering me. Seats and legroom were OK, but the meals were disappointing. Delta enshitified food service. While the meat-or-pasta choice remains, the meals themselves shrunk from my regular travel days of a decade ago. For example, I pretty much saw the memo in my mind from someone at Delta HQ, detailing how cutting the little piece of cheese and pack of crackers saves a certain amount of money. We chose one each of the meat and pasta. That way, if one was worse than the other, I’d give the better of the two to the wife. She took the non-meat meal. Smart choice. The meatballs were disappointing, even for airplane food. At least the wine was OK.

Entertainment and snack

Sleep evaded me on this flight. I watched movies, maybe dozed off for an hour or so. I thought I might get some writing done, but, even BuJo evaded me. The “breakfast” managed to disappoint even my low expectations. We landed early. Italian (EU) immigration operates smoothly. With passports stamped, we hailed a taxi and were off to the Sina Bernini Bristol Hotel.

Return flights

I insisted we return through any other US airport than ATL. We booked VCE-AMS-JFK-MSY. Flying to JFK cuts the long flight short by three hours. While some folks accept the longer flight, I prefer getting out of the cigar tube.

Airlines use the spoke-and-hub model in Europe as in the US. So, we traveled from Venice (VCE) to Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS), then JFK. The spoke-to-hub flights depart very early. I regularly traveled these 0630 flights to get home when I taught in Scandinavian cities. Our flight to AMS meant we left the hotel at 0400 *yawn*. The upside of this is sleep comes easier on the plane. Marco Polo Airport offers a nice KLM club. KLM operated that first flight. They remain a class act. Transfer from EU gates to the international side of AMS went smoothly. Delta flew us in another A330, this time we were on the opposite two outside seats. The charming flight attendants offered us equally mediocre choices. We both ate the pasta. Delta presented us with a well and truly enshitified version of a meatless hot pocket as the snack. Travel to JFK was mercifully short, with an early arrival. CBP cleared us with no issues. We grabbed a couple of sandwiches in Terminal 4, then snacked on Biscoff cookies heading home.

Summing it up

Overall, the travel experience was mixed. Delta’s manipulation of the itinerary demonstrated a lack of consideration for the customer. The food sucked. At least the crews and the wine remained solid. Would I do it differently next time? Not if it means flying United.