United Restarts Onboard Sales of Hard Liquor

After announcing last month it would resume the sale of hard liquor, United Airlines today, Monday, November 15, did just that for flights longer than 301 miles to the domestic U.S., Canada and Latin markets.

The carrier made the decision despite an overwhelming amount of onboard incidents and physical altercations between passengers and flight crews this year - more than 5,000 reported to the Federal Aviation Administration, in fact.

Many of those were verbal and due to the face mask mandate, but some were physical and fueled by alcohol consumption.

Just two days ago, in fact, a woman was charged with assault in Dallas after physically attacking a Southwest Airlines operations manager at Love Field, although there was no indication whether the woman was inebriated.

Southwest has actually banned sales of hard liquor into 2022.

But United believes this is the right time to bring back hard liquor sales and that its total number of passenger-flight crew incidents is lower than fellow airlines and relatively low compared to the number of passengers it flies.

"With travel demand on the rise and the many safety protocols we have in place, particularly with our site of contactless payment solutions, now felt like the right time to expand our inflight beverage menu," United said in a statement provided to Fox Business News.

United also told Fox its decision to bring back hard liquor was "heavily informed by feedback from both our customers and flight attendants."

The Association of Flights Attendants union has also asked airports to halt the sales of to-go alcohol at bars and kiosks inside the terminals to cut down on passengers drinking before flights and bringing it onboard.