While on holiday, most of us want to worry about nothing other than where to sit on the plane and what to watch while we fly. But there’s one thing that flight attendants recommend that you pay attention to on your next flight.
Joy, a flight attendant with six years of experience, didn’t hesitate when asked what the worst thing she ever witnessed mid-flight was. She said: “The grossest thing I’ve seen is someone putting their feet up on a tray table. Which is another reason I will never use a tray table.”
Other professionals echoed her worries. Amara, who has been in the industry for three years, says it’s something passengers should be more worried about, in her experience.
She advised taking wet wipes with you when you travel, adding: « Wipe down those tray tables. Just trust me.”
A third one, Luke, takes things a step further. After flying for four years, he developed a routine: “I go to my seat with these Clorox wipes and I make sure I wipe down the seat from top to bottom and from the tray table because truthfully, you never know who was sitting there before it.”
And if you think these statements are exaggerated, science backs them up.
The findings showed tray tables contained around 2,155 colony-forming units of bacteria per square inch – against the 127 usually found in your typical home toilet seat, according to the US National Science Foundation.
Additionally, a study conducted by the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Arizona found that lavatory door latches and overhead locker handles can harbour significant bacteria, with some tests even detecting traces of faecal matter – but tray tables still ranked higher on the germiest surfaces list.
While planes do, in fact, get cleaned between flights – as confirmed by the flight attendants themselves – it might still be a good idea to save space for wet wipes on your carry-on bags next time.
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