Do you want to drink that coffee in the plane
 

I always wondered what kind of water they use to make the coffee in the planes – Do they use bottled water or just the tap water/ How claen are those pipes and the water..

Finally I asked few FAs and found out that they ONLY use the tap water to make the coffee. (except when they want to drink coffee, they use bottled water). I am curious to see how often they clean those water pipes! Some photographs of the water pripes in the plane would be nice.

Now.. Coffee any one?

The water system on the airplanes are cleaned on a regular basis and flushed with a chlorinated solution. The filters are changed and the water supply to the airplane is also regulated and must meet the same standard as regular tap water at municipal water systems in the US. The water is clean, so is the system.

The "pipes" by the way are 1/4" tubing and it would be pretty tough to take a picture of the inside. The coffee makers onboard are not like your home unit, they are hard plumped to the water system. If the FA's are making coffee with bottled water then they are using coffee singles and hot water, but the hot water comes from the same source as the coffee water, so I am not sure how they would make that work.

:cool:

I am sure we are at no risk with the boiled water. I take my own instant coffee and tea bags on the plane and get the hot water from the FAs. This way I know what I am getting. :D

After a bazillion flights and just as many cups of coffee, I'm still here!

Not gonna worry about it.

I don't think you clean the insides of the pipes at home... So you boil bottle water at home? As mentioned above, they must meet the standard, and it is actually fit for direct drinking. You just have to drink "slightly dirty" water, otherwise it would be easy to fall sick if the drinking water standard is slightly lower, get your body used to the dirt in the tap water.

OP:

Coffee is a natural vitamin. Of course I'm going to drink it!

You are kidding yourself if you think bottle water is a safer way to go. I have personally seen two FA drink directly out of a bottle and later proceed to pore water from the same bottle into a passagers cup. Yes, I did report it.

Thats disgusting! Now I am definitely sticking to wine and coffee.

Just like in Mexico, I'll stick to beer and sparkling water (no ice please).

Why does it say in the bathroom sink that the water is not drinkable?

Really? I thought there were little cups in a wall dispenser in the lav.

Just be aware that the boiling point of water at altitude is lower. For example, at about 27,000 feet, the boiling point is about 175F/80C. Inside a pressurized cabin, the temperature may be higher, but still not the sea level 212F/100C.

Which explains why black tea on planes is generally awful.

So I was watching the news the other day and there was a lady on talking about flyersrights.org. Some of the things are a bit obsessive, but there was a fairly good (although I don't know how accurate) report on drinking water. UA is actually one of the better ones as far as contaminants (or at least the one they were testing for).

Link: http://www.flyersrights.org/articles..._Airline_Water and http://www.flyersrights.org/air-water-data.pdf

The tap water on the plane, and all tap water for that matter, have stricter regulations and standards than bottled water. Bottled water is not nearly as heavily regulated in the US.

Not to mention all the bottles that end up in land fills. When I lived in Upstate NY, we had a spigot sticking up out of the ground up the street form us and a bottled water company had tucks all day filling up from it. I have no idea where that water came from, but people paid $$ for it.