by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 10:34 AM ET, Sat October 14, 2017
Don't drink the water when you fly.
Seriously.
A former flight attendant, Heather Wilde, told a Quora thread that the water lines on airplanes are never cleaned. Like ever.
"Flight attendants will not drink hot water on the plane. They will not drink plain coffee and they will not drink plain tea," Wilde said.
What's more, the EPA found that one in every eight planes failed the agency's standards for water safety and 15 percent of tested aircraft water systems contained potentially harmful bacteria, according to the New York Post.
Avoiding the drinking water was just one of the helpful secrets regarding commercial flying that was revealed in a variety of recent news articles.
Among the other airplane tips and tricks highlighted in the New York Post article were a variety of plane features that many travelers know nothing about.
For instance, there's a hidden handrail running along the overhead storage lockers in most commercial airplanes.
The handrail can be used to steady yourself (as many flight attendants can be seen doing) when walking up and down the aisle. Think of this as a favor to the passengers whose headrests you usually grab not knowing there is a handrail just above.
Because airplanes are designed with great precision, to maximize the safety of passengers, there are many other such features that typically go unnoticed on the plane.
The "secret" button in the armrest of the chair closest to the aisle is another example.
The button in question is underneath the armrest, close to the hinge. It allows the armrest to be lifted all the way up, flush with the back of the seat. Flight attendants often use this button to help disabled travelers in and out of seats. But you can think of it as a hack to create a bit more space, which in an era of constantly shrinking seats, is a serious bonus.
Another bit of airplane trivia that falls in the safety category are those tiny holes in the airplane windows: They are a safety feature designed to reduce the pressure on the middle window pane so that the outer pane is the one that takes the force of the cabin pressure.
And one last tip-this one from an article in The Sun that involved interviewing numerous flight attendants-the tray tables are among the least hygienic surfaces on the plane (well, besides the bathroom surfaces, most likely.)
One attendant noted on Reddit that it's not unusual for people to chair their babies diapers on that tray table. And not all tray tables get wiped down thoroughly in between flights.
When they are wiped, the cleaner is almost always using the same cloth to wipe down every tray table on the plane.
You're welcome.
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