A flight attendant serving food and drinksPhoto byUser:Mattes; CC-BY-SA-3.0
A former U.S. flight attendant named Kat Kamalani has warned her viewers on TikTok not to drink hot beverages including tea, coffee, and hot water on a plane.
Kat is a travel blogger who provides travel tips and hacks for her viewers on her TikTok channel.
According to Kat, there is a reason behind her warning to refrain from drinking hot beverages. And that is because the water tanks are never cleaned.
Kat further claims that the coffee machines are never cleaned and that only the kettles are cleaned. The kettles are cleaned in between flights.
As for the coffee machines, they are only cleaned if they break down. Also, the coffee machines are often located next to the lavatories contributing to the “ick” factor.
Kat claims that even the cabin crew and other flight attendants rarely drink hot beverages on flights.
The safest drinks to consume on a plane are those that are kept in cans or sealed bottles.
In addition, Kat recommends that parents of young children should never ask for hot water to put in the baby’s bottle.
Rather, she recommends that they ask for a sealed bottle of water and hot water in a cup. The bottled water can then be placed in the cup and heated.
While Kat’s warning was disturbing to some people, not everyone agreed with her advice. After all, different airlines have different standards of cleanliness.
Others claimed that the water tanks are sterilized on a regular basis and that coffee or tea is usually served boiling hot which destroys the bacteria anyway.
