The Nasty Reason Why You May Want To Stop Ordering These 3 Popular Beverages While Flying

The best part of flying has to be the snacks, right?

No matter how long we’re stuck on the runway, or how annoying the person sitting next to us is, or how gross the bathroom will almost certainly be, at least we can look forward to some cookies or chips (or, if we’re lucky enough to have an especially generous flight attendant, both) and a drink.

While most people have their go-to selections, it turns out there are a few popular items we might not want to order… and for a really gross reason.

That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — recently learned when we chatted with HuffPost senior reporter and travel expert Caroline Bologna about how to make air travel less miserable.

“I heard you shouldn’t drink water on planes because it can be from tanks that they never clean — is this true?” Michelson asked.

“You should not drink water that you didn’t see come out of a bottle,” Bologna warned.

That’s because even though the water on planes is required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be potable, the Aircraft Drinking Water Rule passed in 2011 orders that airplane water tanks to be flushed and disinfected just four times a year — or just once a year, if the tanks are tested monthly for substances like coliform bacteria and E. coli.

A 2019 Hunter College study found that despite this federally mandated cleaning and testing schedule, many airlines “have possibly provided passengers with unhealthy water.” The study also discovered that the EPA “rarely levies civil penalties to airlines in violation” of drinking water safety rules.

However, Bologna noted that if flight crews serve water from bottles, you can — and should — drink as much as you like.

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