A flight attendant has warned a common in-flight mistake could wreak havoc on your holiday.
For most Brits, the holiday starts as soon as the plane takes off – that means sitting back, ordering a tipple or two, and inevitably berating the food for being unimaginably bland and boring.
However, a stewardess has revealed a ‘dirty’ secret kept hidden by the aviation industry, which might put you off ordering altogether.
The revelation was made in an eight-year-old Reddit post which has since been deleted, and exposes how opting for ice in your drink could leave you with a nasty stomach bug.
“Don’t get ice in your drink,” the anonymous woman, who claims to be a flight attendant, said. “The ice is put in a tray with a scoop and the tray doesn’t get cleaned very often.”
The stewardess added that ‘every surface’ of the plane is touched by hundreds of passengers and not regularly disinfected.
“Between ice scoops, I’ll probably touch a seat, a Coke can, my tablet to charge someone for a drink, their credit card, a tray table, and the cart,” she added. “So basically my hand snatches up all those lovely germs and then goes back into the ice drawer to pick the scoop back up and do it all again.”
She confirmed that drinking dirty ice might not ‘kill you’ but certainly isn’t pleasant, and claims that most of the flight attendants she knows avoid ordering it.
Disturbed users rushed to the comments section to express their outrage, with many questioning why a more hygienic approach hasn’t been adopted. Others argued that they never order ice – even at restaurants – for the exact same reason.
“Okay, never getting ice with my drinks anymore on the plane,” one grossed-out person wrote. Another agreed, commenting: “I used to wonder why I got sick on my overseas flights as a child. Always chalked it up to so many people in a confined space. Now I’m thinking there’s more than one cause.”
Others criticise the hysteria, arguing that a bit of ice is harmless. “Unless you’re a Howard-Hughes-level germaphobe the ice and drinks on a plane are perfectly fine,” one person stated. “Most restaurants are dirtier than what you describe. Also most airlines serve drinks with ice without asking whether you want it or not.”
Would you order ice on your flight after the warning? Let us know in the comments section below