There aren’t a lot of hills in coffee that I’m willing to die on. I have strong feelings about a lot of things coffee-related but very few I’ll impose upon others with any real force. One of them is this: airplane coffee is good. By this I mean that by most objective standards it is bad but there is an experiential component that is undeniable. Maybe it’s Pavlovian and drinking watery burnt coffee is conditioned to be the prelude of some adventure or the anxious return home from one, but I’ve dog-brained myself on the stuff. I love it. And further I would argue that if you can’t appreciate a good cup of bad coffee in the right time and place, then you don’t truly love coffee like you think you do.
All that preamble to say, I’m not exactly plussed by a new study rating the water quality on airplanes vis-a-vis it being the proverbially hill that I may literally die on. It found that water on planes varies greatly from carrier to carrier, but some of them were bad. Like, bad bad.
Created by the Center for Food as Medicine and Longevity, “a nonprofit organization working to bridge the gap between traditional medicine and the use of food as medicine in the prevention, treatment, and management of disease,” the 2026 Airline Water Study examined water quality on 21 different airlines—10 major and 11 regional. Over a three-year period spanning Q4 2022 through Q3 2025, researchers collected water samples they were provided on flights and tested them for coliform bacteria, which are used as indicators of potential fecal contamination, and E. coli.
Each carrier was then given a grade between A and F based on the test results. Delta and Frontier were the only two to receive an A grade, receiving numerical scores of 5.0 and 4.8, respectively. Alaska, who serves Stumptown on all flights that is better than it has any reason to be, along with Allegiant were the only two major carriers to earn Bs, at 3.85 and 3.65, respectively. And all the way down at the bottom of the major carriers list is American, with a D and a rating of 1.75.
Regional carriers overall performs worse than majors, with Gojet topping the list with a B (3.85) and Mesa bringing up the rear with the reports only F (1.35).
Of the total 35,674 samples tested, 949 came back positive for coliform. The study notes, though, that scores were most negatively impacted by Maximum Contaminant Level violations for E. coli, where 32 total violations occurred “across the 21-airline universe.”
Because of this, the study recommends passengers to only drink water on planes that comes from a sealed bottle. They also suggest not washing your hands in the airplane bathrooms, which should maybe tell you exactly how gross the water is. Most damningly, though, they state you should never drink coffee or tea onboard.
This is of course terrible news for me and my soapboxing. And potentially also my health because I refuse to change my ways. It should be noted that the researchers soften their stance a bit by the end of the study, stating to instead “avoid coffee and tea made with onboard tap water when feasible.” To which I would say thank you, noted, but not drinking coffee simply isn’t feasible. Even if I do happen to live in the hub of American Airlines’ grey water coffee empire, but all the more reason to get away, right?
Listen I’m just presenting you with the information, do with it what you will. I choose to ignore it and continue wondering why flying turns my bowels into the Fourth of July.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
