The human body needs water to sustain itself. Our brain is 70% water, lungs 90% water and our body is 60% water overall. It is the fuel that propels us forward. So is charging separately for water on an airplane like charging separately for a safety belt or oxygen mask?
Another British Airways story, courtesy of the Daily Mail.
A group of schoolchildren claim they were denied free tap water while on a three-hour flight from Naples to London Gatwick.
Around 60 pupils from a school in Hampshire, many of whom were not carrying food or water, were returning from a geography field trip on February 23. They were told they could only pay for water by bank card, as BA banned cash payments earlier this year.
But many of them only had cash and were told that cabin crew could not supply free tap water from the galley.
British Airways disputes the incident, stating that it does offer free tap water.
But not all airlines do. On SAS, coffee and tea is free, but not water. On Eurowings, which I just flew to Mykonos earlier this week, water is also not free. In the USA, Spirit Airlines will deny you free water.
But should it be? Not just for children or the aged, but for everyone?
Although I usually tend to be opinionated, I am undecided on this issue.
Spirit’s CEO Ben Baldanza explains why his airline does not offer free water–
Do we not pour you a glass of water for free because we’re mean? No. It’s very expensive to bring water onboard the airplane. The bottle of water isn’t expensive to buy, but its several hundred dollars to cater that cart to the airplane. The reality is that if we gave water away for free on the airplane we’d have to raise every ticket by $0.25 fare cents.
I see logic in that reasoning, especially because most airports sell water bottles and offer drinking fountains. Unlike withholding a safety belt or oxygen mask, which guards against immediate danger, going a couple hours without water is rarely harmful.
But I also appreciate the argument from the other side, which asserts that withholding something essential as water is indeed tantamount to a safety risk. Indeed, airlines are provisioned with potable water tanks — why not make that available? No cart required!
Airlines should not be required to provided bottled water, but withholding tap water is a much more controversial issue.
What do you think? Should access to water be treated like access to life-saving amenities?
Please just charge the extra 25¢ up front so we can have ‘free’ water. I’ll even let you add $2 – it’s still cheaper than the $4 I have to pay in the airport…
Raise every ticket by quarter ($0.25) to have access to tap water? By all means then do it. Bottled water at airports are expensive since they have a monopoly. I think the cheapest bottled water I’ve seen is $3 at the airport.
Was there not a chaperone that could have paid for the water, then had the kids give them the $2 or whatever it is? I do think BA should cater water on flights of that length. If there is any sort of ground delay your looking at 4 or 5 hours of total time. That is not an acceptable time to keep passengers without water.
A good tip for the financially frugal is to bring an empty water bottle with you thru security and fill it up somewhere in the terminal. Problem solved!
Bring an empty bottle and fill it past security. It’s free.
It would be helpful if airlines warmed passengers ahead of flight if their water policy. BA caught me by surprise recently. Now I know to: 1). Ring my own water bottle and 2) yet another reason to avoid BA.
Airlines have a real problem with brand confusion (in the US now being exacerbated by basic economy fares), what’s a full service airline and what’s an ultra low cost carrier? And if customers can no longer tell they aren’t going to pay a premium for the former.
So entirely apart from whether an airline should provision sufficient water for the cabin — in the US airlines have to hand out water on long ground delays — the question is what’s in the best interests of the airline, and what can passengers reasonably expect?
A full service legacy airline should provide water. An ultra low cost carrier maybe not. US Airways tried briefly to charge for water, that experiment was shelved. And their stock symbol was LCC. http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2008/06/12/us-airways-joins-the-first-bag-fee-party-charges-for-water-and-coffee-and-even-more/comment-page-1/
I think it should be complimentary. Of course we as humans can make it through a short flight with no water, but what if a passenger is having a panic attack or is fainting form dehydration or anything else? Making water complimentary does not add that much to a passenger’s ticket, and decreases the potential for airlines to do bad to their customers and reduces liability for safety claims as they will be required to provide water to passengers who need it. If the airline does not make it complimentary, it can often show a lack of common sense, as described in several incidents in the past few weeks.
It would be relatively easy to say airlines should be allowed to charge for bottled water, and should be allowed to decline to offer free tap water to compete with their beverage sales, if passengers had another choice, as they do with bringing food on board.
“You have plenty of time to fill an empty water bottle in the airport before you board” just isn’t necessarily true. Everything in the travel process causes delays, and sometimes you’re racing for the gate before they close it on you. I do bring an empty bottle through security, and I usually have time to fill it, but I’m not going to fault a passenger who doesn’t, thinking of course they’ll be able to get a glass of water on the plane.
That’s the general case, though. In this SPECIFIC case, BA look like ogres because they denied tap water to SCHOOLCHILDREN. To make it nuttier, some of the kids were clearly prepared to PAY for water, but were told they couldn’t, because BA no longer take cash. Sure, a chaperone or random nearby passenger could have offered to pay for beverages and collect cash, but wouldn’t necessarily be prepared to make change.
I’m glad the mainline U.S. carriers have backed down from the brief attempt to charge for soft drinks, though I understand why some of the budget carriers still do. Spirit is right; between the unit cost and the catering cost, handing the passenger a bottle of water costs no less than handing her a Diet Coke. But letting the passenger remain thirsty is lousy customer service.
You do not want to drink the “tap” water aboard an airplane for sanitary reasons, about which I have written in articles at The Gate.
Count me in the camp of raising airfares by 25 cents for the availability of “free” bottled water to passengers.
Brian raises a good point, and I’m pretty sure even when the airlines aren’t charging for water, you’re getting water poured out of a large bottle rather than coming out of one of the plane’s years- or decades-old “potable water” tanks.
Provisioning 1.5-liter water bottles, or even the 2.5-gallon bottles with spigots, would make more sense for airlines than handing out personal serving-size bottles.
My thoughts exactly!
I wonder if they don’t want to open themselves up to liability. Of course, they do use it for coffee!
Some of these flights are over 8 or 12 hours long. No matter how long a flight is NO ONE should be denied WATER on any flight! Especially if the airline only accepts credit card! Flights are extremely dehydrating, and hard on the body. This is beyond cruel! What if someone simply had their wallet stolen or had an issue with their card! This happened to me once.. it was the most torturous 14 hour flight!!! Up each ticket .25 cents or 5 dollars if you need to! Flying should be as enjoyable as possible! An airline who denies water to its passengers clearly only cares about it’s incomes and not it’s passenger’s basic needs or comforts! This is very sad. Restrictions such as baggage sizes, baggage prices, and seat sizes when flying these days are torture enough!