Q – Ultra-cool travel site – but no one has written in yet who seems to share my need to feel constantly hydrated while flying those stretch aluminum cans. I have to have water when I fly – lots of it. I just think dehydration is an awful feeling on a plane and its so easy. I used to bring several bottles through the airport (am I boring you yet) but TSA make me empty my super-size water bottle. This leads to my question – is it appropriate, normal, polite, expected that I would keep asking the flight attendants to refill them?
A – You have posed an interesting moral-ethical dilemma. Yes, ask them to refill your bottle from time to time, but since you will be getting up to use the lavatory every hour, carry the bottle up with you so it is easier for them to fill it. Then beware of what you are drinking. If they give you the aircraft’s stored water you very well get sick. Never drink anything but water that you see being poured out of a bottle on any aircraft. The water hose is hooked up to each plane on the ground and the fuel and water tanks are filled up. This is not tap water and the storage tanks may never have been scrubbed for decades. But we do not think you are overstating the need for hydration. We don’t think you’re weird. At least not all of us.
