Can someone explain 5am airport drinking?

[Prenoden]

I'm not asking this as a kill joy or teetotaler, I enjoy a drink on holiday as much as anyone but how are people able to stomach pints at 5am?

Been on holiday recently and could barely eat before flight yet everyone else had pints/ g&t etc. It wasn't even mid morning it was 5am

Just reminded me to book the airport lounge before my trip to JFK! 3 hours at Manchester airport - may as well make the most of it and give the pearl clutchers something to clutch at

Just because you and your husband are not the type of people I'm describing doesn't mean they don't exist. You really don't have to look hard to see (and hear) groups like this. They can be hard to miss.

Of course people getting smashed at the airport at 5 am exist.

But not everyone having 'a drink' at that time is part of a rowdy group having several to prepare themselves for disrupting the flight or getting loudly pissed by the pool all week.

DP and I do drink a lot when on holiday. But we're never drunk or loud and we spend hours swimming and walk several miles every day. Plus read multiple books during the week.

Mumsnet is very keen on not making assumptions about people based on seeing a snapshot of them. The people who assume that anyone enjoying an alcoholic drink to mark the start of their holiday has a drink problem might like to remember that.

Drinking at 5am is needless, no matter how you try to dress it up.

A lot of things are 'needless'; tv, computers, sweets. Drinking at 6pm is 'needless' to. What's your point?

5am is just a time marker on a clock. That's all. The world, the atmosphere and life is the same, no matter what a clock says. And it's not 5am everywhere in the world at the same time.

Airports have their own time zones. Acceptable times are irrelevant at the airport.

When I go for an early morning flight I've likely been awake all night or since 2am. So have many others. It's therefore only 5am on paper not to my body.

I'd rather have breakfast with coke mind you than a beer. The caffeine keeps me awake long enough to get on the plane. Beer would send me to sleep or make me need a pee!

I look forward to you telling that to, say, an Auzzie at LHR who had just stepped off a direct flight from Aus and is having a drink with what to them is their evening meal while waiting for their connecting flight.

I think alcohol should be banned from airports full stop. It’s pointless. Stepping off a flight at 5am doesn’t magically make it 5pm.

Well if we're looking at it that way, airports themselves are pointless. No-one needs to fly anywhere. We can all stay at home or travel by land/sea. Goods can also be moved by land/sea and we'll just have to wait longer.

It does to the person's body. And a clock is just a marker of man made time. Life, the atmosphere, the world is the same no matter the time.

I know this is always said and yes you’re more at risk of a car accident but aren’t you much more likely to survive a car accident than a plane crash ?

Possibly...don't forget a lot of things that technically go on the list as aircraft accidents don't get reported by the general MSM but are eminently survivable...for example there's been a bit of a fashion recently for aircraft clipping wings/tails on the ground...basically very expensive aviation equivalents of fender benders...nobody hurt but probably some damaged careers..

I’ve done hypnosis now (which has helped but not eradicated my fear) but before that I needed a couple just to get me in a plane without crying 🤣

God some people are such fun suckers 😆

I love a Mimosa or two at whatever time I want to drink it in the airport.

But we live in a society. And drinking at 5am is unacceptable.

To you

But not at the airport.

So many things are pointless, make up, hair accessories, expensive handbags, glittery flipflops, holidays, forums like this, expensive chocolate, throws, scatter cushions, china cups, ornaments, fluffy socks - do you want me to conintue?

Life would be bloody boring if we didn't have or do anything needless.

Do you, or have you had issues with drinking @IGaveSoManySigns ? Not being goady, but a genuine question?

Why is it different?

What time would be acceptable?

Agree with others, it’s just part of the holiday ritual! I don’t think anything bad about it, just couldn’t stomach it myself.

And never mind airports, what about the hotels that serve fizz along with breakfast? I really don't care where and when people drink alcohol on holiday. It's time to step off the real world and just let go a bit. Live and let live I say.

Because it's the airport and time is rather irrelevant there, shops are open most of the night too. Same goes with motorway services, who also have a 'Spoons at a lot of them now.

When you're travelling you're not doing normal day to day life or routine. Airports are a 24/7 hub where life doesn't stop because the rest of the UK are in bed.

To you it might be, to many it really isn't.

I don't know if you've ever worked night shifts but I often did and it was considered completely acceptable by others to occasionaly have a drink on the way home post work...

The 9 to 5'ers on the way to work might raise eyebrows but I'm afraid all that sometimes demonstrated was that they had limited experience of how and when a lot of the world works.

I know and understand that, hey I am there with the rest of them - I was asking someone else why it is different?