The most germ-filled spot at the airport...is not where you think it is
There’s no avoiding it. You will have to use the airport’s dirtiest spot at some point during your trek through the airport to board your plane. No, we are not talking about the toilets - those unappealing cubic spaces with broken door latches, toilet roll holders sans toilet paper, paper towel dispensers that have long ago run out of towels, hand-dryers that refuse to blow any air and malfunctioning washbasin faucets. Even if I cannot avoid not using the toilet, there is one thing that I avoid opening with my bare hands – the door handle when going out. Infact, I push it open with my foot, failing which, use paper towels to push it open. Why? A lot of people don’t bother to clean their hands after using the restroom and just rush out.
While most people avoid the bathrooms at all costs due to the wet floors and smelly toilets, they’re not actually the dirtiest place in an airport. The biggest villain happens to be the plastic security bin, which is used to hold carryon luggage and items of every passenger when going through security to board their flight. These innocuous looking trays are used by passengers to put bags, wallets, shoes, electronics and metal objects and are home to the highest number of viruses in the airport.
Research carried out by the University of Nottingham and the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare discovered that 50% of these security bins tested positive for nucleic acids of respiratory viruses. The most common found was rhinovirus, which can cause the common cold. Explains the ‘sniffle’, one suddenly developes once on-board. Why cannot airport authorities provide alcohol hand rub to for queuing up passengers - to hand sanitize before and after security screening. This would reduce the risk of infection. By the way do they ever disinfect the security trays?
Challenging the plastic security bin’s top rank for the dirtiest spot in the airport is the ‘self check-in’ kiosk – specifically its screen. InsuranceQuotes.com, commissioned researchers to conduct swab tests at three major airports to identify the amount of germ colony forming units (CFUs). Self-check-in screens harboured an average of a 253,847 CFUs, One specific self check-in kiosk was even found with over 1 million CFU! (A toilet seat in a house has an average of just 172 CFUs).
The study also revealed other candidates for ‘Top 3 dirtiest places in the airport’, namely the airline gate bench armrests, which contained over 21,000 CFU, whilst the water fountain buttons came closely behind with 19,181 CFU. Other areas that tested positive included handrails for stairs, elevator buttons, plastic toys in the children’s playground and payment buttons at an airport pharmacy.
One thing the study may do is explode a commonly held myth that people are more likely to catch a cold up in the air via the air-conditioning than on the ground. That is not to say that planes are free from germs and there are certain parts of the plane people would do well to handle with extreme care.
Ilzaf Keefahs- writes on hospitality related matters that he is passionate about, and likes to share his views with hoteliers and customers alike.
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