Q – Love the fact that you tell the traveltruth about places to avoid when flying due to high bacteria counts etc. I had never even thought that aisle seats were so much more likely to be filthy than window seats. But missing in your information is the cleaning schedules for the airlines. I fly about two months a year, on average, on all of the major carriers. Would appreciate any specific as to how often things are cleaned on the average aircraft. Also wondering how airports themselves stack up against aircraft when it comes to germ counts and exposure. There are far more people in the terminal than there are on my 737.
A – The cleaning crews you see waiting on the gangway as you disembark, are primarily there to remove trash bags while also performing a quick wipe-down in the lavatories. That, of course, means that the tray table and your armrest have likely not been touched since the seat was last occupied by Typhoid Mary or one of her relatives. The airlines are proud of their so-called “Deep Cleanings” where the seats are usually shampooed and the entire seat surface is sanitized. The good news is that they actually do this – the bad news is that they normally do it about once a month. Planes arriving on their last leg, ready to spend the night relaxing at the gate until morning, are usually given preferential cleaning – but that is a very relative term.
We can clearly state, based on several university studies, that airports have higher germ counts than aircraft. Self-check-in screens are the filthiest spot in the airport, rivaled only by the lovely, grey TSA trays where you resat those things that are truly important to you. You should never use the screen or the tray before first wiping it down with anti-bacterial wipes. Yes, people will stare at you, some will laugh, and the guy in the Make America Great Again Hat may think you’re a terrorist. But it’s still a good idea.
