State Can Control Airborne Alcohol, Judge Says

The state of New Mexico was within its rights to prevent US Airways from serving alcohol on flights to the state after a drunken passenger was involved in a fatal auto crash, a federal judge has ruled.

The Associated Press reported Oct. 2 that U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo said that state liquor laws took precedent over the Federal Aviation Act and the Airline Deregulation Act; US Airways had argued that the federal law trumped state law.

New Mexico officials denied the airline a liquor license in 2007 after a passenger who drank heavily on a flight to Albuquerque caused a crash later in the day, killing five people.