The strange contradictions of Islamic law in UAE

Aussie businessmen set to face UAE court - Breaking News - National - Breaking News:

"'The most interesting charge that we find the gentlemen are facing is drinking alcohol on a flight as non-Muslims without a permit,' Mr Mulcahy told AAP from Abu Dhabi.

'I'd be very concerned if I was flying Etihad at this point in time as a passenger if you did have your ticket booked that you had your alcohol drinking permit.'"

The three Australian businessmen were arrested as they got off a scheduled flight of Etihad, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates.

The airline, it seems, is quite willing to serve alcohol to infidels in flight, but not warn them of the need for a permit to consume it.

Champagne
If you have a reason to celebrate on board an Etihad flight (birthdays, honeymoon, anniversaries, etc) a bottle of champagne can be made available for the occasion.

The only other reference to alcohol I found on the Etihad website was this item in the list of things not to include in your baggage: "Flammable liquid fuel such as petrol/ gasoline, diesel, lighter fluid, alcohol, ethanol." The site does not include a search feature.

And this is an airline that serves such hard-drinking cities as Sydney, Munich, Paris, Dublin and New York. You would think they would offer warnings about alcohol to their customers. The website helpfully offers special meals for Hindus, Jains, various sorts of vegetarians and others on special diets (that's all on the page where I lifted the quote about Champagne) but no word I could find about alcohol consumption permits for non-Muslim customers.