A passenger was horrified and took to social media to complain about an American Airlines flight attendant he caught “recycling” orange juice in the first class galley. I do not see valid outrage here.
Praise For American Airlines Flight Attendant Who Did Not Waste Orange Juice
A passenger was flying on American Airlines from San Diego (SAN) to Charlotte (CLT) and was seated in the first row of first class.
A flight attendant must have offered water or orange juice as a pre-departure beverage, per protocol, and there were not many OJ takers.
Instead of just dumping the orange juice she began “pouring orange juice back into the original container.”
I was shocked not only did she pour one cup she poured several cups back into the original container.
Oh please.
You really think she was pouring back orange juice from a cup that a passenger had halfway consumed? She probably over poured and rather than throw it away just poured it back in the container. No one had touched it—not the rims of the cups and certainly not the juice—so what is the big deal?
I get it that some would liken this to a man not washing his hands after urinating because “I only touched what was clean.” Yes, I grant that both are social faux.
But in a Western world with obscene waste, I applaud her action. I once had an employee who took pride in always leaving food on his plate whenever we went out because, he boasted, “I can afford it. It shows I’m not poor.”
Baloney.
A responsible steward of his resources is not going to needlessly waste them (and in the case of my employee, I’ve also never understood people who refuse to eat leftovers).
View From The Wing suggests that the flight attendant may have been cost-conscious after CEO, Robert Isom told employees not to spend a dollar more than they need to.
Perhaps. I tend to think she was just of the generation or mindset that there is no need to throw away perfectly good OJ that has not been touched. And for all the drama it caused I probably would not repeat her action, but I do applaud her intentions.
Finally, maybe the horrified should have instead celebrated he finally found a flight attendant who offered a pre-departure. After all, most are too busy:
Pre departures are offered if there’s time to serve them but sometimes catering is late and boarding is hectic due to late arrival of inbound flight.
Do you often buy a hamburger and expect to be served steak, @garyleff? https://t.co/GLXt2jPAYK
— @Heather_Poole (@Heather_Poole) November 9, 2023
(I’m not sure about the hamburger – steak non-sequitur…)
CONCLUSION
I have great sympathy for the “stewardess” (as the complaining passenger called her) who recycled the OJ. I make it a point not to waste food and I think if we all did that a little more conscientiously we’d have far less waste in this world and perhaps less starvation in those places that do not have the luxury of flushing clean water down toilets or throwing away leftovers.
What we seem to have here is a passenger in search of an outrage. I’m assuming he always is successful.
Thank you Mr. Klint for seeing how truly ridiculous this article was and having some sense that the flight attendant was not being wasteful.
There’s a reason why buffets require you to use a new plate for every helping, as opposed to simply refilling your dirty plate as you’d do at home: communicable diseases. Yes, diseases/illnesses/things that are contagious. And food/drink are one of the very best places from which to contract an illness. Because infections happily live in things like juice or food, after being deposited there by indirect contact with the saliva of an infected person. Did you consider that before writing your little lecture about conservation? There are reasons for things, Matthew. Restaurants don’t pour untouched OJ back into the carton, do they? No, they dispose of it. Always. Why? It’s a bigtime heath violation. Same here.
This FA shouldn’t be applauded; she should be scolded for being so foolish and unprofessional.
apparently you’ve never physically touched any surface inside a plane – news flash – you’ve already had contact with every body oriface of every person who has ever been on that plane!!
@goodguy; you’re not putting that stuff in your mouth are you? No, you’re not. Which is why that’s a terrible analogy.
Not really. This is akin to the buffet worker bringing out a fresh pan of food and dumping the leftovers from the mostly used pan into it prior to putting it on the warmer.
Quite right. Good point.
You don’t actually know that, do you? That they weren’t in anyone’s possession? That’s been posited here, but that stuff was passed around the cabin before being poured back in. There’s a reason why we’re talking about this…because it’s rarely done. Why? It is unsanitary.
I can’t believe how many of you here are cool with this. I’m no germaphobe. In fact, I hated the mask wearing BS. But this was poor food handling. Go ahead and drink it – I’ll pass.
I think the name “Angry Flier” says everything we need to know about your opinion. I feel sorry for your flight attendants.
That is a good analogy. And I can speak from experience as someone who had to really watch their immune system for a little bit after a medical procedure…. I wouldn’t have taken any liquid I didn’t receive in the original unopened container, and I wouldn’t eat at a buffet period. Those who have a condition bad enough that they may be in serious danger of catching something are not going to put themselves into that kind of marginal risk situation to start with, like ingesting anything somebody else may possibly have touched.
As a foodservice safety matter, they’re very different. Service pans are different from single-use serveware or things like plates. Generally, you’re not supposed to pour things into another container and then re-introduce it into the original container as you’re bringing in an unknown. When I worked at Starbucks we weren’t allowed to put tea in a cup and then put it back in the main container, even if it hadn’t been served. Similarly not allowed to store tea in a cup for the same reason – you don’t know where that’s been and it’s not a foodservice container.
Setting aside the “waste not want not” and of course “John’s ” comment there is the over riding possibility of contamination especially these days of roaming viruses around the world. This is especially concerning on an airplane closed off.
While would on the one hand applaud the FA for their conserving company assets I for one had I seen that action would not have asked for anymore orange juice. When I was in AF one thing they always told us never drink anything unless you opened the container.
Nope.
Sorry.
Can’t bitch about everything.
Alternative is throwing away orange juice, with her luck having all orange juice drinkers, and running out of a beverage.
Just no.
Find something else to be unhappy about in your miserable life you putz, taking pictures of a girl do a good service and bitching.
Get. A. Life.
I read this on VFTW and thought the same, it’s not something that would bother me. And if you knew what happened in restaurants behind the scenes you’d probably never eat out…especially if you’re so triggered by this OJ thing. Also, really, Gary is the biggest germaphobe in existence. His endless rants on reusable bottles in hotels is tiresome.
Perhaps the easier way to go about this would a be a simple pen and paper and asking each passenger what they would to have from a given choice. That prevents waste and also ensures hygiene at the same time.
A real seasoned flyer… “the Stewardess…”?
There are only so many beverage resources on the plane. If they used a ton of beverage during service and later had to divert, that passenger would with they saved that OJ. I’ve diverted before and all they had was a hodgepodge of random drinks to serve for the long delay on the tarmac at diversion point. By the time they got to the last rows, all they had left was hot water and OJ. This is someone looking for drama and has clearly never worked in any service industry in their life.
THIS is what AA gets when they sell $49 upgrades to anyone sitting in Economy instead of upgrades for elites.
Oh PLEASE!! When you went through security at TSA, you. grabbed a bin and pushed your belongings through the x-ray machine AND probably didn’t wash your hands after.
@Matthew: Completely non related to this article but I thought it was worth sharing. What do you know about a BA flight from Rio to London that was canceled on September 5th because the crew said they had been robbed in Rio? Here is the original article: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12496157/amp/BA-crew-robbed-Brazil-arguing-taxi-fare-Penha.html
Well, I just read in the Brazilian news that an investigation showed they lied. They spent the entire night drinking and consuming drugs to the point of passing out and lied when they were just trashed to fly the plane back to London. Here is the new article in Portuguese (you can use Google translate): https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2023/11/15/tripulantes-assaltados-delegada.ghtml
Apparently BA crew loves to get into the dark side when they are overseas. Scary!!!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Those FA’s tend to put a thumb in the cups when pulling them off the stack, after touching everything on the plane, and now apparently before dumping the contents of a cup back into the container. And it’s not the same as a warm pan in a buffet where the heat kills the germs, Drink up, Matthew.
To quote Lucille Bluth: “If I wanted something that your thumb touched, I’d eat the inside of your ear!”
At the end of the flight the entire carton of opened orange juice will be dumped out even if it is nearly full. So puring in a glass or two of returned cups will hardly help with food waste on a plane.
I don’t see the need for outrage, but I wouldn’t advocate this practice. A lot of this is about perception rather than risk, but perception is very important when it comes to what people perceive as being safe to put in their bodies.
I think redirecting the FA such that she does not over-pour the OJ to begin with is all that is needed here.
The idea that this is fighting food waste seems similar to me donating a dollar to pay off the US national debt. The imperceptible gain in fighting food waste here may be more than offset by the negative reactions that people will have to this practice.
Not a good look but there’s so much acid in orange juice, the chances of someone getting sick are close to nil.
Crew should have offered 2 predeparture bev at a time, oj or water since not all pax will want a bev. Quantity and quality of bev is preserved. Preboarding/ boarding of fc/bc pax is different among airlines…crew may not have enough time to offer predeparture bev due to unforseen problems. I’ve always advocated eliminate predeparture bev or serve it only in designated area in gateroom designated for fc/bc pax, like the courtesy lounge for elite flyers.
The truth is this flight attendant didn’t save American anything and the OJ was still thrown away because catering at the downline station is required to throw away any and everything that’s been opened. So this OJ still ended up in the trash and this is not a good look for AA.
If the flight attendant wanted to reduce waste what they should have done is instead of walking through first class blindly offering water or OJ they should have asked each passenger in first class would they like a pre-departure beverage and if so what would they like. Pouring OJ back into the tetra pack even if no one touched the glass except for the flight attendant isn’t the look American Airlines want’s to portray to their passengers.
That is absolutely disgusting.
I don’t see what the fuss is about. If you’re willing to drink from-concentrate orange colored sugar water then you’re not concerned about your health nor the quality of what you consume.
Since this is AA, am I correct in assuming this was fresh squeezed OJ? They do have a hub Miami after all.
Optics. Optics. Optics. Regardless if it is safe or not it can give the wrong impression. Pull the curtain if you must recycle (assuming its a safe practice). It is like watching 5 of 8 TSA agents standing around. You do not know if they are on the clock, on break or other some other valid reason. All you know is they are not helping you.
You don’t pour OJ or tomato juice down the galley drain, because the sediment cloggs them. Easy solution: pour it back in the container and dispose of it. Unless the original poster saw the exact OJ carton being used for service later, this is a really dull story.
And why couldn’t the FA not be using the OJ container as a waste container. You can’t use the drains on the ground and liquids shouldn’t be poured in the garbage container. So some airlines use empty bottles and containers to pour disposable liquids into.
Very good point.
I’ve worked in food service. This is not good. Not the end of the world but still not good. I hope this is for disposal and not for serving.