A recent study by TravelMath.com has determined that airplanes are, in fact, dirtier than your home–although that might depend on the rigor of your particular domestic cleaning habits. This study also offers advice on which specific surfaces on a given airplane are likely to be the dirtiest, so that you know when you should REALLY wash your hands before touching your face.
WHICH PARTS OF AN AIRPLANE ARE THE MOST GERM-FILLED?
The site sent a microbiologist to take swabs from four different flights and five different airports, collecting 26 samples in all (The study doesn’t name which airlines and airports were swabbed). The results are measured in terms of “colony-forming units (CFU)” per square inch.
Perhaps the most interesting (startling? unnerving?) finding from the study is that the tray tables where your food rests contain over eight times as many CFU/in2 than the flush button in the airplane bathroom: 2,155 to 265 CFU/in2, respectively. The germs on the tray tables pose a pretty decent risk of direct transmission to your mouth, so the authors of the study suggest that you chalk up any food that might edge off your plate as a lost cause.
The seatbelt buckle samples contained around 230 CFU/in2, and the overhead air vents ring in at 285 CFU/in2. The drinking fountain buttons in the airport are dirtier than the plane bathrooms, too, with findings of 1,240 CFU/in2. The bathroom stall locks are only 70 CFU/in2.
For context, the study offers the CFU/in2 counts for standard household items. Money carries about 5 CFU/in2. Cell phones hit around 27 CFU/in2, home toilet seats about 172 CFU/in2, and home countertops 361 CFU/in2. Pet toys are 19,000 CFU/in2, and pet bowls are 306,000 CFU/in2. Maybe don’t kiss your dog.
It’s possible that the surfaces people expect to be the dirtiest are the ones where more care is taken to keep them clean, which means the inverse could be true for the surfaces that don’t immediately make us think of germs. So, the bathrooms might receive a lot of washing and wiping, while the tray tables are really exposed to a higher volume of germs that just don’t seem as gross. This is fairly solid logic: the bacteria present in bathrooms are at a higher risk of containing infectious coliforms like E. coli.
All of this is not to say that airlines don’t take care to keep their flights clean for you. Staff are under pressure to keep boarding processes efficient, which means prioritizing the surfaces that get cleaned in between flights. This study just indicates that they should maybe prioritize cleaning the tray tables more frequently, and you should probably make a habit of carrying hand sanitizer while traveling.
