Is Airplane Coffee Safe to Drink? Here’s What Flight Attendants and Experts Say

That steaming cup from the beverage cart may not be as harmless as it looks. According to cabin crew and researchers alike, the problem starts with where the water comes from.

You may have heard the recent chatter on social media about airplane coffee and tea. Several flight attendants have gone on record urging travelers to steer clear of those beverages over hygiene concerns.

"Flight attendants will not drink hot water on the plane," one flight attendant told Business Insider back in 2019. "They will not drink plain coffee, and they will not drink plain tea."

The reason? The water on board doesn't come directly from a treatment facility, but from a tank that often goes months without being cleaned. The conversation resurfaced in 2021, when a former flight attendant went viral for sharing a list of things to avoid while flying.

In a TikTok video, Kat Kamalani, who said she had worked for one of the biggest airlines, claimed that coffee makers are "rarely cleaned unless they are broken."

"Those water tanks are never cleaned and they are disgusting," she said at the time. "We rarely, rarely drink coffee or tea. They come from the same water tank, and so when you're drinking that coffee and tea, it comes from that hot water, and it's absolutely disgusting."

In 2023, another flight attendant, Kevin, opened up about his own reasons for passing on plane coffee. "The fact that the tanks rarely get cleaned where the water's in should be the least of your concern," he said.

He went on, "For me, it's always been the way that flight attendants have to clean coffee pots. For whatever reason, we're not supposed to empty coffee pots in drains, we're supposed to dump them down the toilet."

Over the years, researchers have also taken a closer look at the onboard water tanks used to brew coffee and tea. In 2019, CUNY's Hunter College Food Policy Center conducted an Airline Water Study, in which it ranked "11 major and 12 regional airlines mainly by the quality of water they provided on board its flights."

The findings revealed that "Alaska Airlines and Allegiant won the top spot with the safest water in the sky."

Meanwhile, JetBlue and Spirit Airlines reportedly received the lowest scores for onboard water quality. The ratings were based on 10 criteria, including "fleet size, violations of the government's Aircraft Drinking Water Rule, positive E. coli and coliform water sample reports."

As for what to sip instead, flight attendants recommend sticking to drinks that come in a bottle or can.