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The question of whether it’s safe to drink coffee brewed on an airplane comes up all the time. There are countless clickbait-y articles featuring airline staff warning people not to drink airline coffee. “Flight attendants will not drink hot water on the plane,” one anonymous flight attendant told Business Insider in 2017. “They will not drink plain coffee, and they will not drink plain tea.”
Those concerns center on water quality—and a new report suggests they may be well founded.
The report, from the nonprofit Center for Food as Medicine and Longevity, used data from the Environmental Protection Agency using samples they collected from 10 major and 11 regional airlines operating in the U.S. between 2022 and 2025. The report’s authors gave each airline a “water safety score” out of five, based on criteria including violations per aircraft, disinfecting and flushing frequency, and violations for E. coli. Anything above 3.50 was considered a passing grade.
Delta Air Lines (5.00) and Frontier Airlines (4.80) were the two major carriers with the best scores, while American Airlines (1.75) came last. Only one regional carrier, GoJet Airlines (3.85), managed a passing grade. “Nearly all regional airlines need to improve their onboard water safety, with the exception of GoJet Airlines,” said Charles Platkin, the center’s director, in a press release.
The center’s recommendations are drastic: only drink bottled water onboard, don’t drink coffee or tea brewed on the plane, and use an alcohol-based sanitiser rather than washing your hands with bathroom water. The report also criticizes the EPA for “weak enforcement” of water regulations, noting that penalties for violations “remain extremely rare if at all.”
Read more about weird water on airplanes from Gizmodo here.
Photo by Nellie Adamyan on Unsplash
