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Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by chrisseaton on Monday July 22, 2019 @04:41PM (#20502143)
> Several of these are probably not even available in First Class on American carriers, such as the handtowel or socks or free alcohol.

I think you must have an atypical experience of US business or first.

Towels, socks, free alcohol are all basics on US carriers that you always get in business or first.

Free alcohol is available even in economy on every US carrier I’ve been on.

Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by magduf on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @10:52AM (#20507177)
>Free alcohol is available even in economy on every US carrier I’ve been on.

Citation needed.

>>such as the handtowel or socks or free alcohol. >Towels, socks, free alcohol are all basics on US carriers that you always get in business or first.

No, I'm not talking about towels, I'm talking about a handtowel. It doesn't exist on US planes, because it's an Asian custom. It's a hot, wet towel that they hand out to everyone before every meal so you can wipe your hands. It's called an oshibori in Japanese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oshibori https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/22372/in-asian-re...

Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by chrisseaton on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @06:03PM (#20510629)
> Citation needed.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/travel/inflight/eco...

"Complimentary house beer and wines, soft drinks, juices, tea and freshly brewed illy coffee"

That's in economy.

> It doesn't exist on US planes, because it's an Asian custom. It's a hot, wet towel that they hand out to everyone before every meal so you can wipe your hands.

Yes, hot wet towels. You get them before meals on US carriers as well. Here's a video of them being handed out in economy on a domestic US flight.

https://youtu.be/KzUyCxFLQP8?t=85

Believe me now?

[dead]
Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by chrisseaton on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @01:55PM (#20517779)
You're moving the goal posts. Why are you now saying you're only talking about domestic? You didn't say that before.

> Why are you trying so hard to defend American carriers anyway?

Just resisting your aggressive denial of what I know to be true and accusations that I'm lying (about hot towels, for some reason)! I don't know what parallel universe you're living in but I know what I've seen.

> Do you work for one of them?

No.

Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by magduf on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @04:04PM (#20519087)
I'm not moving the goal posts. I've never seen free alcohol on domestic flights, and I don't see why I should restrict comparisons with international airlines to international flights with domestic carriers. A flight is a flight.

As for hot towels, you'll have to do a lot better than a Youtube video with quizzical comments because apparently none of those people have ever seen it either. In fact, if it were so common, why would someone bother to post a short Youtube video of this? Obviously, given the focus of the short video and its title, the fact that they're handing out these towels is new and novel. And as I've said, I've flown domestically countless times, since the 1980s, and I've never seen this, ever. They would almost certainly do it for flights to/from Asia because it's normal there, but Americans aren't used to hot towels. After all, they never serve them in restaurants either.

Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by chrisseaton on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @04:10PM (#20519140)
I don't know what else to tell you - your experience doesn't match mine. I guess we're not going to agree.

I have definitely had hot towels and free alcohol on US domestic carriers. I'm not imagining it.

Re:Airlines are finally fixing the middle seat by tomhoward on Thursday July 25, 2019 @12:39AM (#20522584)
I can understand your fellow debater getting frustrated here. Whilst at times you each seemed to be confused about what the other is asserting (i.e., international flights vs domestic flights), at other times you are asserting things that are generally known to be incorrect.

Complementary alcohol - as a standard offering - is not normally offered to basic economy passengers on domestic flights in the U.S., and hasn't been for at least a couple of decades.

That said, some airlines offer it as a promotion on some flights [1], which may be why you have experienced it. But it's not a norm that any coach passenger could expect on any domestic flight, the way it used to be in the earlier days of commercial air travel.

The video you shared of hot towels being handed out in economy on a domestic U.S. flight was a one-off promotional event. It's also not the norm.

Like I said, I get that the two of you were talking about different things and were sometimes confused about what the other was talking about. But you did inflame things by asserting/suggesting things that aren't really the case.

[1] https://www.globaltravelerusa.com/american-airlines-to-offer...