Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
Topics: Travel, Health, Food and Drink
Emily Brown
You might think it's nice to settle in with a coffee on an early morning flight, but a flight attendant has warned that hot drinks are one of the things you should aim to avoid.
If you think about it, have you ever seen a flight attendant kicking back with a cup of tea while on a plane?
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Admittedly they're busy keeping us safe and serving us our own drinks a lot of the time, but there is actually another reason you rarely see them drinking hot drinks.
Speaking to Business Insider, one flight attendant said they simply 'will not drink hot water on the plane'.
"[Flight attendants] will not drink plane coffee, and they will not drink plane tea," they said.
The comment came after the FDA issued at least six warning letters to airlines in the 20 years proceeding 2019 regarding the cleanliness of the water on planes.
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In 2019, the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center at the City University of New York and DietDetective.com analyzed the quality of drinking water on 11 major and 12 regional airlines.
In their findings, the researchers said: "The quality of drinking water varies by airline, and many airlines have possibly provided passengers with unhealthy water."
In 2021, former flight attendant Kat Kamalani indicated the issues were ongoing as she claimed the tanks used to store water are 'never cleaned'.
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She said: "Rule number one: Never consume any liquid that is not in a can or a bottle [...] those water tanks are never cleaned and they are disgusting."
Kamalani also said the tanks are 'rarely cleaned unless they are broken'.
Business Insider noted in a 2017 article that even heating the water for tea or coffee might not be enough to kill off bacteria as it 'may not be heated high enough'.
In response to concerns about dirty water, Airlines for America told the publication: "The safety of our passengers and crew remain the airlines' primary focus, including the provision of clean drinking water. To meet customer preferences, airlines typically provide bottled water while also ensuring water available through the aircraft onboard water systems is safe.
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"Airlines work closely with the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that water received from municipalities for onboard systems is safe and to maintain that safety by following rigorous sampling and management requirements once received. "
The likelihood that water on planes will become contaminated is thought to increase due to the amount of times it is moved around before it is stored on the plane.