American Airlines Pilots Warned Not To Eat Their Dessert—Union Says It’s Laced With Alcohol

American Airlines pilots in Phoenix are being warned not to eat the tiramisu on their crew meal trays because it contains alcohol. Their union says it can’t determine how much is in a serving or what that might mean if a pilot is tested. Aviation watchdog JonNYC shares the warning from the Allied Pilots Association’s Aeromedical–HIMS Committee. It covers crews based in or transiting Phoenix, where the contracted caterer has put the dessert on some crew meal trays. The contracted catering provider has included tiramisu containing alcohol on some crew meal trays. Because the dessert is not cooked after the alcohol is added, alcohol may remain in the finished product. We recommend that no crew member consume this dessert. The committee says it’s working with the Phoenix Flight Office to have the item removed and replaced. Until then, pilots should accept an incomplete meal. They’re telling pilots who ate it and are concerned about being fit to fly to contact their union reps. JonNYC’s October 30, 2026 post sharing the Phoenix crew meal alert How Does Alcohol End Up In A Pilot’s Crew Meal? One imagines someone selected a dessert option without checking the recipe, or there was a communication breakdown between the airline and caterer. I’ve written before that American’s pilots have traditionally received the same meals as first class passengers. A dessert can be perfectly fine for a passenger and not fine for the person in the cockpit. American Airlines Meal Alcohol isn’t necessary to make tiramisu. Alcohol doesn’t always cook off – it can leave a substantial amount behind though the quantities in the individual portioned dessert would be small. Last year, I covered the union telling pilots to obtain replacement meals in the terminal before departure when their food hadn’t been loaded. Here, the meal arrived, but the union is telling them not to eat all of it. Could A Small Tiramisu Show Up On An Alcohol Test? Alcohol in food can enter the bloodstream but that doesn’t mean it would be detectable or a pilot was impaired. A small dessert with a few grams of alcohol, where it gets eaten and the pilot winds up being randomly tested several hours later, probably doesn’t produce anything detectable based on FAA discussions of how the body eliminates alcohol. However, there are a couple of additional scenarios: Alcohol left in the mouth. This can temporarily inflate a breath reading. Federal testing procedures require at least a 15-minute wait before a confirmation test in order to address mouth alcohol. They’re not taking an immediate reading after a bite! Abstinence monitoring. Some pilots returning to flying after alcohol treatment undergo separate testing for alcohol metabolites. Those tests can detect an exposure after the alcohol itself has cleared. It’s abstinence testing that would be an actual concern. A Delta Pilot Fought The FAA Over Alcohol In His Lunch In Erwin v. Federal Aviation Administration, a Delta pilot in alcohol monitoring attributed a positive urine test to pulled pork cooked in beer. The restaurant confirmed using beer, which hadn’t been disclosed on the menu. The agency withdrew his medical authorization. Delta required another treatment program and a last chance agreement if he wanted to keep his job. The appeals court sent the case back because the agency hadn’t adequately addressed his evidence. I’ve written about the strict requirements for pilots returning after alcohol treatment. American has even apologized for photos of bartenders dressed as pilots mixing cocktails in its inflight magazine. They pulled the magazine from planes, back when they had magazines on planes. “The Tiramisu? What is it?” “It’s a little dessert in the front of the plane where the pilot’s career used to be, but that’s not important right now.” Topics on this page