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Originally Posted by ToiletDuck
Here's another one. What do you do if a passenger says they smell alcohol in your breath?
Many companies have established procedure for this. At a former employer, upon a passenger announcing their suspicion, the crew would notify dispatch, the CP, and customer service of the situation. A customer service supervisor would then come out and discretely remove the customer from the aircraft to further discuss their beliefs. This included presenting them with a card that explained the process of an alcohol investigation, the DOT rules for alcohol and drug testing, and other pertainant info (don't remember everything that was on the card). If the passenger continued to assert their feeling, the crew would be removed from the flight for random (usually off-site testing).
Personally, if I ever had a passenger make an accusation, I'm done flying until I get tested. Period. Simply because if I don't get tested, there may be question about my fitness to fly if anything were to happen during the flight. Once I was found fit to fly (which I know I would be), I would have no problem returning to the aircraft and explaining the situation (and why we're now running 2-3 hours late to the passengers).
I do know a captain that was accussed of being drunk in Madison, WI a few years back. (Ironically, by an semi-intoxicated person as it turned out.) My company and United took legal action him for compensation due to lost revenues, delays/cancellations, and passenger inconvenience/missed connections.