10 Unfortunate Secrets Of Air Travel

When we catch a flight to our dream destination, it seems that we have more than enough to worry about. We want to make sure we don’t get flagged by security and possibly miss our flight. And there’s always that niggling little worry that our bags will end up in a completely different part of the world when we get there. These aren’t even taking into account the flight itself, which will likely find you praying for a nice, quiet passenger to sit beside as you wrestle with the cramped legroom.

So it pains me to have to make a sucky situation even worse, but there are a few other problems with air travel that you won’t find in the safety card. Yet on the plus side, knowing many of these will probably help cut down on trip-related illnesses. 

So let’s get into these 10 trade secrets that you can really use.

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1. Don’t use the plane’s pillows.

You’d likely have to pay about $8 for them anyway, so it’s no great loss. Still, it’s worth knowing that an investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that airlines tend to clean their pillows and blankets every five to 30 days. Their suppliers will even repackage these items without cleaning them.Research also found that bacteria responsible for eye and lung infections, pneumonia, and intestinal bleeding have been found in trace amounts on these pillows. After all, a lot of people used them before you.

2. Your biggest threat in the bathroom isn’t what you’d expect.

In general, airplane bathrooms are surprisingly clean because the most care is taken to disinfect them. However, the big exception is the button you push to flush the toilet.While other surfaces on planes hold bacteria for longer than these buttons (and we’ll get to them), the flush buttons are more likely to transmit harmful bacteria because these microbes have nowhere to burrow.

3. Try to avoid the seat closest to the bathroom.

The problem here doesn’t have much to do with health but rather the smell and lineups you may have to deal with. According to travel writer Christine Sarkis, the passengers in these lines are more likely to lean on and jiggle your seat and bump into you, so that’s kind of a drag.

4. Flight attendants really have it rough.

You’d expect a job that only accepts about one percent of its applicants to be one that someone would actually want, but new flight attendants make about $18,000 a year and are only paid for what they do while the plane is actually in flight. For about six months, they can also be fired for something as simple as wearing their uniform sweater around their waist or blogging while wearing their airline’s uniform.This likely has to do with why some passengers have started to tip their flight crew, but most airlines don’t allow flight attendants to accept tips.