A United Airlines passenger flying into San Juan, Puerto Rico last weekend was refused an alcoholic drink by a flight attendant who cited a policy that does not actually exist.
The traveler, seated in the exit row on a four-hour Saturday evening flight to San Juan, asked for a drink and was turned down. “A 4-hour Saturday evening flight to San Juan on my birthday eve was a bad time to learn that alcohol is not served in exit rows,” the passenger wrote on the r/unitedairlines subreddit.
There is no such restriction. United Airlines policy sets no condition on serving alcohol beyond a passenger being 21 or older, and the Federal Aviation Administration does not bar exit-row passengers from being served alcohol either. The passenger was of legal age and sober. United Airlines declined to comment when asked about the incident.
Other Reddit users who saw the post said the flight attendant appeared to have simply invented a rule on the spot.
“That’s not a policy. Sounds like you ran into a tyrant that makes up whatever rules they want on the spot,” one commenter wrote.
“70 flights so far this year on United. If I don’t get upgraded, I’m in the exit row. Almost always get a drink. Definitely not a regulation,” another Redditor said.
It is not the only recent case of a United crew member enforcing a rule inconsistently. Another passenger recently complained after being told, on a flight from Denver to Chicago, that a laptop could not be stowed in the seat-back pocket during takeoff and had to go under the seat ahead instead. That rule, unlike the alcohol claim, is a genuine FAA requirement — the passenger said they had been allowed to keep a laptop in the seat pocket during takeoff for over a decade of flying with the airline without being stopped.
The San Juan-bound passenger filed a complaint with United after the flight. The airline responded with an apology and 5,000 complimentary miles for the flight attendant’s error.
For travelers, the episode is a reminder that airline employees do not always have the final word on what the rules actually say — and that it can pay to know your rights, and to push back when a crew member asserts one that doesn’t exist.
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