Every time you take your seat on the plane, no matter is economy class or business class, you’re traveling with some hidden companions who came before you. Recently, many medical cases are related to the bacteria thriving on the plane and the passengers got severe skin inflammation, diarrhea etc. For example, the strong bacteria like methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which can produce sores on the skin and be life-threatening.
Research
Kiril Vaglenov, a post doctoral fellow in materials engineering, and his colleagues did what most of us wish we could before every flight – in the lab, they sterilized six surfaces normally found in a cabin, from the seats to the toilet handles by irradiating them with gamma radiation. Then they did something none of us would – they intentionally infected these surfaces with some unwelcome bugs – MRSA and E. coli 0157, which causes severe diarrheal disease.
Here’s the breakdown of the germiest surfaces in the cabin:
- Seat pocket 8 days
- Rubber arm rest 7 days
- Leather seat 7 days
- Plastic window shade 3 days
- Plastic tray table 3 days
- Steel toilet handle 2 days
source
So there are FOUR things that you'd better not to do on the plane:
1. Try not to wear contact lenses during the flight
- The low humidity in the cabin makes our eyes dry easily. if we just close our eyes for 15 minutes, corneal oxygen deficiency will cause the eyes inflammation. For me, I had eye inflammation once when I wore the contact lenses for more than 10 hours working on the plane. So I now will take them out when I have few hours rest during the flight and make sure you wash the hands before touching the eyes.
2. Avoid wearing slippers, flip-flops
- Sometimes I saw passengers wear long sleeves jacket and pants cover their body but just wear the flip-flops. Actually it's better to wear the socks instead as it can prevent toes touching the dirty carpet and other areas which are full of bugs. Especially the cleaners on ground just clear and vacuum the visible garbages but nothing to do to kill the bugs. Or someone vomit on the floor and the cleaners just try to use some spray to cover the smell and wipe the vomit away only. SO DON'T TOUCH THE CARPET!
3. Don't wear shorts and skirt in the flight even it's the short flight.
- One of my friends flew back from Bangkok to Hong Kong and she found that her upper leg was so itchy and later became so red and painful like burning. The doctor said she can't just wear shorts on the plane cause now the skin touched the dirty seat and it's affected by MRSA.
4. Try to wipe the armrest handle, the remote, tray table and seat recline button with alcohol wet tissue
- Most of the flights nowadays will offer passengers alcohol wet tissue before meal service , or you can prepare few before the flights. Those areas and even the seat pockets are the dangerous places where the bugs stay forever.
Thank you for reading my post!
Have a safe and great flight everyone :)
Much love,
Gladys
follow @gladysmak
Such a useful post. Thanks so much for putting time and care into this one. Rule number 5: drink lots of alcohol. Rule number 6: be super nice to flight attendants, but not the bitchy ones :D
The last one probably is the best rule people should follow!! Bitchy ones? just give them back the attitude. They deserve it. :D
these are good hints. In addition i heard, to kill bugs , insects etc. on plains they spray insecticides, even when people are inside. The "fresh" air from the outside is warmed up by the turbines, so you inhale the fumes of the burned up kerosene. so only open the "air" valve above Your seat at maximum hight.
When You travel by plane at maximum hight ~10km then you get the radiation equivalent of a breast X-ray every 7 minutes, due to cosmic radioactive radiation.
so when you stay in the plane longer, you are breathing some dust and bacteria in the air. So no matter we can't get rid of it, one thing you can do is wearing a mask all the time in the flight. For flight attendant, sometimes we need to check the radiation level inside our body especially when we always fly the long haul flights.
may be research (Your s) along the following lines will be of help
https://www.agnihotra-online.com/index.php/de/homa-anwendung/homa-therapie , only partially translated https://www.agnihotra-online.com/index.php/en/
i ain't going nowhere no more ! :-(
You've posted a beautiful one ... and shared some great photography here ... Hopefully your trip has been very good ...... Thanks
Thank you @fazlehassan.
wow....its a amazing post.....i hope your travel was very good....i hope your best of luck
Thanks for stopping by @alex-linda!
Great tips!!
thank you :)
OK, have to remember no. 4. Nos. 1 to 3, I'm already doing anyway.
Thanks for the tip
I'm impressed :)you have done so well!
So, add alcohol wipes to the travel packing list. :-)
it is very nice post for me.
i like your tips,i try to obey it.
Nice to think about these issues while traveling... thank you for sharing. I’m sure you can enjoy your holiday nich more if you‘re not I’ll...
I realize more and more that I get ill when I am with many people (e.g. after visiting a fair)... so I should pay more attention😎
You are right! Just pay attention and take good care of yourself! Stay healthy too!
Thanks for your tips, I think they will be useful to many) Waiting for your next travel)
thank you @naditinkoff!
Well have a pleasant journey and the four things that you told that sure are necessary & will follow them if I travel again !
yes indeed!! It's very important to know :)