Aviophobia is the term given to people with a fear of flying; those who cringe with every "fasten seatbelt" sign and turbulent swim through cumulonimbus clouds.
As if these worrisome individuals didn't have enough to be uncomfortable about, a new study finds airplanes are as just frightening inside as they are out.
Travelmath.com, a site that calculates flying time between cities, sent a microbiologist to grade five U.S. airports and four flights based on their cleanliness. Thousands of people pass through airports on a daily basis, so it wasn't much of a surprise when researchers said airplanes are dirtier than the average home.
Where they found germs, however, will make you think twice about reaching for a drink menu.
"Surprisingly, it is the one surface that our food rests on - the tray table - that was the dirtiest of all the locations and surfaces tested," study authors wrote. "Since this could provide bacteria direct transmission to your mouth, a clear takeaway from this is to eliminate any direct contact your food has with the tray table. It's also advisable to bring hand sanitizer for any other dirty surface you may touch along your journey."
The microbiologist used colony-forming units, or CFU's, to estimate how much bacteria or fungal cells were in a given area. Here is the ranking of six tested locations, calculated per square inch:
1. Tray table - 2,155 CFU/sq. in.
2. Drinking fountain buttons - 1,240 CFU/sq. in.
3. Overhead air vent - 285 CFU/sq. in.
4. Lavatory flush button - 265 CFU/sq. in.
5. Seatbelt buckle - 230 CFU/sq. in.
6. Bathroom stall locks - 70 CFU/sq. in.
Some may be surprised to find seatbelt buckles dirtier than bathrooms, but one has to remember that flight crews clean routinely clean bathrooms. Still, lavatories pose the biggest threat to containing fecal coliforms, like E. coli, and - in this case - carried about 41 percent of the germs found on an average home toilet.
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