rules on international flights
 

I was wondering: if you are flying from the US, where you have to be 21 to drink, to a European country where the drinking age is well under 21, are you allowed to drink on the flight? Just curious. Thanks.

Topping this for you so the "flight guru" will be sure to see it.

Perhaps it depends on which airline you're flying with?

Drinkings laws in the US are local, but there isn't any national law that you have to be a certain age to drink in the US. There is no legal drinking age minimum, but there is a minimum age to purchase and public possession of alcohol (but not solely to consume it--some states have laws for that, but some don't). Private clubs are exempt from public possession laws, for example.

This is the case for most European drinking laws I've seen, also -- there is no minimum age for consumption usually, just purchase.

So I suspect airlines would not fall into the category of public possesion in either case (but I don't know, since drinking laws are local, I imagine they might not even apply to airplanes up in the sky), and no one on the airline would really care if a responsible adult bought the drink for their teenage child.

that posted by mistake -- I was just speculating, but I know there is no US law prohibiting drinking under 21. Any airline can probalby make up its own rules, though, they always do and can always refuse to serve someone. I bet some flight attendants make up rules even when they don't know why. Maybe there is some FAA regulation on this for consumption in airplanes, but I don't know about that. someone probably will

At the moment you enter the plane you are legally on the territory of the country the plane is from. Legal drinking age in most of Europe is 16/18 depending mainly on alcohol content. Fly a german airline, and a 16 year legal drinking age of beer an wine applies, even if you are somewhere in the states. However, if you get drunk and cause trouble, its a totally different story.

Not 100% sure about this, but I have always been told that American carriers are not allowed to serve those under 21. In addition, International carriers normally won't serve under 21 while on the ground.

There are no national laws, but I believe there are FAA regs on drinking.

You might try going to www.flyertalk.com and posting this question on the forum for the airline carrier of your choice.