Six passengers out of the 226 passengers on a Frontier Airlines flight fell ill after drinking from a water fountain in the airline concourse. The passengers, who weren’t sitting together, started vomiting on a flight from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to Tampa International Airport. Flight attendants announced the problem and asked other any passengers who were feeling ill to alert them immediately. As soon as the plane landed in Tampa, personnel removed the sick passengers. “It’s a little bit concerning just because we didn’t know what was going on,” one passenger said. “We didn’t know what made everybody sick.”
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Authorities at the Cleveland airport think the passengers’ sickness could be linked to water fountains, which have since been shut down as a precaution during the investigation. Passengers on the New Year’s Eve flight were asked not to leave the plane while mask-wearing health officials conducted tests on the plane. Not having to wait long, the remaining travelers got off the plane around 4:30 p.m. with no additional reports of people getting sick. “Once our medical team determined the passengers weren’t contagious, everyone was released from the plane and the airport,” TPA Vice President of Communications Janet Scherberger said. “No one was transported from the airport to local hospitals.”
Last year, close to a dozen passengers showed flu-like symptoms on flights into New York and Philadelphia. The panes were quarantined immediately. Reports of how unsafe airplane water may be were released in 2018. Experts said “it will not only increase dehydration, but it is most likely loaded with bacteria.”