Should We Fear Dirty Water Tanks & Airborne Illness? Not Really

Every so often, friends will send me articles about flying and ask me to comment on their validity. The topics are usually the same, yet recur incessantly. Some fellow crewmembers buy into the madness of these panic pieces as well, but people seem to be uninterested in the more important, more real issues at hand.

The most obvious example is the drinking water onboard. I get asked about it just about every other day by my non-flying friends. Articles like this one and this one and on to infinity love to get passengers into panic mode about drinking coffee or tea onboard flights. Our water tanks, according to reports, are nothing but an E. Coli stew that no crewmember who cares about his or her own health in the slightest would ever put near their lips. But looking into the articles and the information cited, no one has been (knowingly, anyway) sickened by airplane water. Flight attendants like me as well as pilots tend to drink hot beverages plenty during the flights. You’d better believe that if I have to work a redeye flight, I will have to be properly caffeinated.

In short, if you’re dragging and need a boost before landing, drink that coffee if it’s what you really want. Is it delicious? No. Will it cause your intestines to fall out? Also no.

The other one is the cabin air, which is not particularly unfounded, but not for the reasons people usually worry about. The fear for most people is that the recirculated cabin air is carrying the germs from the old guy hacking within an inch of his life in 21B as well as the remnants from an apparently all-meat breakfast eaten in a rush by seated directly in front of you in 14C. So that’s the air you’re breathing over and over and over until you’ve reached your destination 12 hours later. Right?

Nope. While you do have some time to savor the fine aspects of a confined space with one hundred or so strangers, the cabin air won’t stick around for too long. Air is taken in through the engines every so often, sent through a HEPA filter, sent through the cabin, and is sent back out again.

However, this can be a real problem – and one that airlines aren’t keen on admitting to.

I recently wrote about Aerotoxic Syndrome, and you may have heard about it in the news – airline crews as well as some passengers have increasingly been hospitalized for respiratory issues following “fume events”. These fume events, which airlines have explained away in hundreds of different ways, mostly avoiding giving any credence to the idea that more research needs to be done, occur when a seal on the compartment containing engine oil fails and that oil is vaporized in the hot engine air. The vapor then enters the cabin and can cause headaches, nausea, seizures, tremors and other effects. Despite claims by Boeing that these events take place, Boeing has designed their 787 Dreamliner aircraft with an air intake away from the engines.

The other issue that seems uninteresting to those who don’t work in the airline industry is that of toxic uniforms. The battle being waged between American Airlines crews and their employer over the health issues that have suddenly arisen with their uniform redesign has been well documented. They’re also not the first ones to have to deal with this issue – Alaska before them had a similar struggle with Twin Hill, the manufacturer of both uniforms – and neither carrier has had any success thus far.

Flight attendant and bestselling author Heather Poole has made it her mission to expose the deleterious effects the uniforms have had on her and even her son, just from being around the treated fabric. Poole is not the only one made ill by her workwear, and not by a longshot. I have many close friends who fly for American as well, and none of their stories are about other people – just about everyone I know can show me a rash or welt. They may not have complained, and have decided to soldier on for the sake of their livelihoods and in the face of what is proving to not only be an uphill battle but seemingly insurmountable. Migraines, rashes, chronic fatigue…these are issues that 20 year flight attendants all seem to be experiencing suddenly upon receiving a new uniform, which has been anxiously anticipated for a long time.

But these issues seem to sit in the background for most of my friends who don’t fly for a living.

Why? Because people don’t know what to do. They can’t avoid a certain drink or bring a handy gadget like a portable air filter or wear a face mask to help avoid the flu or a stomach bug. We take comfort in avoiding the avoidable.

And it is frustrating. We don’t want to have these issues, and we have little power. But those wielding the almighty dollar do. If you want to see change, you can help effect it. If toxic uniforms that make crews and people around them ill bother you, demand change. If fume events scare you, insist that more research is done.

For those who fear illness onboard and readily cling to the next fear piece on the 6 o’clock news, take things into account. Between a viral article and the people who work on airplanes day in and day out, the choice of whose expertise is more valuable should be obvious.

Now go enjoy that coffee.

[Photo: Shutterstock]