Saw this article over on Flyertalk today (link also below) looking at water quality on various domestic airlines. If you click on the link, you, too can see how many times E. coli was found in your favorite airlines galley/lav water supply. What fun!
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-08/tcuo-2aw082919.php
I don't understand this as this is no brainer. Who would trust water that is not bottled on a plane. Everyone drinks bottled water on planes I hope.
Besides drinking only bottled water, they are also suggesting no coffee or tea, and no washing of hands using lav water.
ok; prolific travel here; I have not gotten sick or heard of anyone else in the news that was attributed to e-coli on planes
Since both coffee and tea are made with boiling water, and I've never gotten sick yet, and since I only remember getting water from a bottle, I'm not going to worry.
Some people live for drama...
On an airplane, the hottest water you can get out of the system is just about 195 F. So not boiling.
The most disturbing thing about the whole water quality thing on planes is that the airlines refuse to talk about it. United made a big deal when they switched to illy coffee about how they cleaned and recleaned the water tanks, put in all new brewers and made sure the flight attendants were so careful about contamination, but then in an article I read on this topic their water was one of the worst.
And yes, the water they give you to drink on every airline I have flown in the past years I can remember all has been bottled water.
This study is recent but this information is nothing new, and the precautions outlined have been suggested for many years.
I don’t see where this poster is being dramatic at all.
There is nothing wrong with giving people, who might not know, information to help avoid contracting an illness from flying.
For those who say they’ve never gotten ill, great. Hopefully you never suffer a bout of a STEC infection from contaminated water, or from someone using the lavatory and not appropriately taking care of their hands!
There is nothing wrong with giving people, who might not know, information to help avoid contracting an illness from flying.
ok when you fly beside the hand sanitizer we all use already what extra precautions should we all be taking
besides do not drink the coffee or tea or any unbottled water?
I wipe down the tray table with Clorox wipes as well as some other surfaces. I then do my best to keep my hands off my face!
I’ve been lucky and came down with some gastrointestinal problem within 48 hours of flying and one bad cold only once each. Both ruined a week long vacation.
Hubby stayed well.
That was an interesting article, but nothing I haven't heard before. I only drink bottled water on planes, have never gotten sick from the coffee and have never had a problem with the onboard water for washing hands. I always carry disinfectant wipes for the tray table and other surfaces.
Interesting!
I never clean the fold-down table, I wash my hands with water in the toilet, I eat and drink whatever they offer me, and I have once filled my bottle with drinking water from a tap in Thai Airlines - never got sick on a plane.
Some people live for drama...
Yes, some people do live for drama...
Personally, not a germ-a-phobe, so I'll still drink coffee onboard if I need a pick-me-up.
When I was a kid I rode my bike without a helmet, I drank water from the garden hose, I didn't "Purell" every five minutes but just used soap and water when I washed my hands.
I survived.
I'm at the airport now. I plan to have coffee or tea on the flight, will use the toilet without wearing a hypoallergenic suit, and will relax and enjoy myself.
I'm all about caution. On the plane I do some quinine with gin.
They neglected to mention the ice.
A few years back, husband and I went to the NCAA swimming championships in Columbus, Ohio. He was a competitive swimmer in college and likes to follow the sport and support his team. Many members of three of the teams that arrived on the same flight from DFW became sick with a gastro-intestinal thing the next day. Because two of the afflicted teams were top contenders for the title (Stanford and Texas), the start of the meet was postponed by one day to allow them to recover. The cause was attributed to ice on the plane.
Personally, I stick to wine when flying. ; )
Oh man, Lola. Do you think my quinine and gin kills anything in the ice?
Ice. Same reason you never pour excellent spirits over ice. You don’t know anything about the frozen origin.
I try to wash my hands often. It’s the water, not the soap, that cleans. Soap just acts as a surfactant. Antimicrobial compounds attack some bugs but not all. If they were truly powerful and broad spectrum, they’d harm your skin. Prolonged use of these substances on the same locations and bugs encourages natural selection of highly resistant bugs. I use sinus irrigation as prophylaxis against respiratory problems but that requires very clean water.
You can only do so much.
I always take the Victorian approach but as I don't like gin I stick to wine instead. Now that BA have gone all cheap I'll bring my own water on board for those short haul hops within Europe. I don't ever recall drinking tea, coffee or non bottled water on any flight. Coffee, because I'm a coffee snob, tea because it's from a big pot and never strong enough and non bottled water simply because I don't like the idea of not knowing the provenance or storage conditions of the water. I also don't drink the juice because it's always that nasty concentrated stuff and as I've aged I've also become a juice snob. I love the fresh orange juicers in Spanish supermarkets and was overjoyed when my local Tesco introduced one but it broke recently and hasn't been replaced. Drinks trolleys on airlines are usually pitiful affairs although the wine selection in the 'turn left' sections on BA and Virgin are very good.
This is a real thing, and yes, people have gotten sick from the water on an airplane, it just doesn't make the news. Just like restaurants, schools, hospitals, etc., the water and food on an airplane is something that is supposed to be safe and meet standards, whether you choose to drink it or not. Airlines are responsible for cleaning their storage tanks. Water can come from any airport around the world that they top up at. An airline that has hundreds of aircraft and has to schedule and perform regular maintenance, can have problems on any single one of them, that won't show up without regular testing.
It's not the most important thing to worry about when flying, just something to know. I don't avoid it, and I know the risks.
Doesn't this prove once again that we need to get government regulation off the necks of job creators and let the markets and the people decide?
Thanks heavens we here in the US are finally getting around to freeing pork processors from persnickety rules about selling clean food products and companies of all stripes from burdensome red tape about where they can dump their toxic effluvia.
And we're also reining in those California nutjobs who have been trying to put fetters on vehicle manufacturers' decisions about how much fuel it takes to move our SUVs from our lawns in the suburbs to our drive-thru single-cup coffee shop on our way to the big box store to buy a palette of diet soda pop.
I'm sure there are plenty of enterprising entrepreneurs out there that will fill the need opened up by flyers who are so worried about catching something debilitating in the course of getting from here to there. It's not a problem - it's an opportunity.
Sounds like Coke, no ice is the way to go. And ask for the full can.
