The Problem Flight Attendants Have With Diet Coke Orders

Flying in an airplane is a truly wondrous thing, despite the best efforts of the airline industry to make it an unpleasant and taxing experience. Through the miracle of modern engineering, you board a vehicle that takes you thousands of feet into the air so you can complete in a few hours a journey that, 200 years ago, would have taken months. And to top it all off, you can even enjoy a drink when you're up in the air — but what should you have? We all know that tomato juice tastes better when you're on an airplane, but you can enjoy all sorts of options — although if you want to make your flight attendant happy, maybe hold off on the diet soda. It turns out that's a huge pain in the butt for them to pour.

Why? For the same reason that airline food tasted funny for such a long time: air pressurization. Because passengers would have trouble breathing at such high altitudes, air is pumped into the cabin so that they don't need to fly with oxygen masks. That's obviously a good thing, but it does weird things to your taste buds, as well as the carbonation in your soda. All sodas will foam up more, but the effect is especially pronounced with diet soda, thanks to the artificial sweeteners, which create a fizzier product. With so many bubbles, flight attendants have to do the ol' pour-and-pause, letting a little Diet Coke dribble out at a time and waiting for it to stop foaming to continue.

So how do you get a proper pour when you're 20,000 feet in the air? It's pretty easy, actually. You open the can, turn it upside down into the dinky little plastic cup that airlines give you, and then carefully lift it up while tilting the can. The idea is to get the soda out of the can without giving time for too many bubbles to accumulate.

If you feel guilty for ordering a diet soda on an airplane, let yourself off the hook. Even those who complain about pouring Diet Coke will still do it for you — and compared to other aviation jobs, it's not that much of a hardship. But it's a good reminder that being a flight attendant requires certain considerations that passengers may not ever be aware of as they eat their in-flight meals or even nosh on the charcuterie board they brought aboard (which they are allowed to do, apparently).