Frequent fliers may not like what they’re about to hear. Two flight attendants dish some of the dirtiest secrets airlines don’t want you to know:
1) Don’t be surprised to find some carpet in your food. These flight attendants have witnessed airline staff serve food that had fallen on the floor to passengers.
2) If you drink the tap water on board, you may find yourself in the toilet for the rest of the flight. The water isn’t filtered and the tanks are rarely changed, meaning you may become sick after consuming.
3) Confused why your bag weighs so much? Airport scales are often incorrect. To save yourself having to pay a fee, make sure the scale is at 0.00 before the desk agent weighs your bag.
4) Think you’ll be informed of an emergency? Think again. Says one flight attendant to news.com.au, “One time we had a bomb threat on a domestic flight, late at night. We did not inform the passengers. Apparently they (the authorities) did not think it a very credible threat. We landed away from the terminal and were bussed in. We told them there was a problem with the aircraft and that’s why we landed where we did.”
5) Did you know airplane toilets are only properly cleaned once a day? For this reason, wear shoes to the bathroom and wash your hands before exiting.
To read the full story, head to news.com.au
About Jessie Festa
Jessie Festa is a New York-based travel content creator who is passionate about empowering her audience to experience new places and live a life of adventure. She is the founder of the solo female travel blog, Jessie on a Journey, and is editor-in-chief of Epicure & Culture, an online conscious tourism magazine. Along with writing, Jessie is a professional photographer and is the owner of NYC Photo Journeys, which offers New York photo tours, photo shoots, and wedding photography. Her work has appeared in publications like USA Today, CNN, Business Insider, Thrillist, and WestJet Magazine.
Some interesting ideas – though I’d really love to see how often this happens or if they’re isolated incidents, or sourced from certain small airlines. I would have a hard time believing this with large carriers (and I’ve flown with many) – especially with health and safety – the PR nightmare to follow would sink the airline if people got sick from the water, or if word got out about ignoring bomb threats.
Hey Ian,
The original article doesn’t give specific carrier names, although I do know one of the two flight attendants works for a major US carrier. Kind of scary!
Rules on airplane tap water have changed in the relative recent past and that may not still be true. http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/airlinewater/index.cfm
As far as not informing the passengers, they tend to keep the pilots in the dark on certain types of threats as well. Just depends on the situation. But I know if the pilot and flight attendant did know there was a bomb threat, I’m glad they aren’t telling the twitchy weirdo in the seat in front of me. Who knows how he’d react.
Good point. I’d imagine that would be quite an uncomfortable flight!