BRIAN Meek in his column, Flying high (May 14), makes a very cogent point of the irresponsibility of the Ryanair cabin crew in supplying drink to passengers who were already well-oiled. However, as he says, he has found Ryanair to be ''a very enterprising outfit''.

What he doesn't say is that the low level of fares which this very enterprising outfit offers, and which he benefits from, is partly funded by the airline's duty-free sales; and the low level of airport charges which have to be incorporated in the ticket price is subsidised by duty-free purchases, made on the ground at the airports; and that the level of comfort which he enjoyed on the ground is funded by duty-free sales.

Foreign travel and, in particular, air travel would be much more expensive and therefore less accessible to the populace as a whole, were it not for duty-free sales. It is only in Europe that we are talking about killing off duty-free; there is no governmental clamour for its demise in Asia, Africa, or the Americas.

He seems upset that the airlines are making ''millions of pounds in profits''. What happened to the Brian Meek whom we knew and loved? The Brian Meek who was in favour of privatisation and very probably has shares in the privatised British Airways? I will agree that, in wine terms, duty-free savings are small, but in Scotch whisky, or other spirits, the savings can be as much as 40%, real rather than imagined.

To suggest that the stocks of spirits carried by an aeroplane are flammable is laughable. The newspapers with which the airline keeps its travellers quiet are far more flammable than a bottle of whisky at 40% vol, 43% vol, or even 45.8%. Perhaps we should ban these for safety reasons?

Has Brian Meek never tried to flambe a Christmas pudding? He should give his wife a rest in the kitchen one day and then he would find out just how flammable spirits at these lowish alcohol levels aren't.

As to the dangers of being brained by a litre of Glenmorangie, the risk of being crowned by someone's laptop, or ceramic monstrosity from Santorini, is considerably more real. Travellers seem to protect their duty-free bottles from damage much more than anything else in their luggage.

Brian Meek ends on a suggestion for duty harmonisation throughout the EU. Was not that the slogan of our erstwhile Chancellor, Norman Lamont, 1989? It is a wonderful pipedream - but only that. France, Germany, Spain, Greece, and Italy have minuscule duty levels when compared with the greedy take of the UK Exchequer, and the wine lobbies are far too important in these markets to allow their governments to raise duty and VAT to UK levels.

Likewise, the UK and Irish Exchequers are too greedy/scared to lower taxation levels to a level close to those of our continental neighbours.

A far more important subject from a UK viewpoint is the huge volumes of dutiable goods which have paid French duty and VAT, and therefore contributed to the French Exchequer and economy, which are being brought into the UK and Ireland for resale.

It is estimated that one million pints of beer every day cross the Channel in this manner, killing jobs in the UK and creating jobs in Europe. It could be a new slogan for one of our political parties.

UK politicians, of all persuasions, seem bereft of ideas for solutions to the problem. The last Government cut the staff of Customs and Excise, the front-line troops in the fight to combat it. Our present Government has adopted the head-in-the-sand tactic in the hope that the problem will go away.

A Dover-based Customs officer, when asked why he and his colleagues don't stop every van/truck which they suspect is carrying contraband goods, replied that if they did stop every smuggler for only one day, it would clog up the courts for five months.

Seen against the scale of this problem, Mrs Thompson smuggling a litre of gin and 100 Benson & Hedges over her duty-free allowance is so insignificant that Brian Meek's words are the mere rumblings of an overfed stomach.

John D Lamond,

Master of Malt,

2 Glenview, Larkhall.

May 14.