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Seat Selection Might Affect Pax Risk of Catching a Serious Bug on International Flights

A new study finds that window seat passengers who remain seated are less likely to come into contact with contagious flyers than other more exposed passengers on long-haul flights.

Flying is the safest way to travel by far, but germy seatmates in cramped airplane cabins can make even seasoned travelers feel a bit paranoid. Recent high profile scares over contagious diseases including Ebola, SARS, TB, Avian Flu and H1N1, have done little to ease the concerns of air travelers. Short of wearing a bio-suit, however, it seems that there is very littler flyers can do to protect themselves from exposure to infectious diseases in the contained environment of a passenger jet.

Now, a new study has found a simple way for travelers to limit exposure to potentially infectious passengers – even in the tight quarters of an international flight. The results of the research project, “Behaviors, movements, and transmission of droplet-mediated respiratory diseases during transcontinental airline flights” published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)concluded that something as simple as choosing a window seat and avoiding movement about the cabin can reduce a passenger’s chances of coming into contact with an infectious traveler and thereby reduce the risk of exposure to any number of infectious diseases.

“I have always chosen window seats,” co-author Vicki Stover Hertzberg told NPR. “But after this study, I have stopped moving around as much on flights.”

The research conducted in conjunction with Boeing used computer models to determine how many passengers and crew members would be likely to be exposed in the event that a contagious passenger was aboard a three- to five-hour-long transatlantic flight. Hypothetical passengers in aisle seats who did not move throughout the cabin during the journey were marginally less likely to come into contact with infected passengers than any other passengers on the plane.

A similar study published last summer found that the manner in which airlines board passenger planes might also affect how many flyers are exposed to infectious diseases. So far, few carriers have adopted the boarding techniques determined by computer simulations to keep the maximum number of passengers from getting sick. In the meantime, science seems to indicate that passengers who are intent on avoiding airborne diseases can increase their chances of staying healthy by finding their window seat as quickly as possible and, if at all feasible, remaining put until arriving at their final destination.

[Photo: Shutterstock]

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4 Comments
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sdsearch March 21, 2018

#Gemma2, flights from Iceland to Paris are transatlantic. And they only take about 3 hours 15 minutes. Iceland to London is also transatlantic, and only takes about 2 hours 50 minutes. Your mistake was presumably assuming that all transatlantic routes are from mainland North America. There's a lot of Atlantic between Iceland and the rest of Europe, while comparatively little west of Iceland, so any flight eastbound from Iceland is transatlantic.

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coastgirl March 21, 2018

Wondering the same thing as SF1K. The article doesn't make sense.

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SF1K March 21, 2018

These two parts of the article seem contradictory: “A new study finds that window seat passengers who remain seated are less likely to come into contact with contagious flyers” And “Hypothetical passengers in aisle seats who did not move throughout the cabin during the journey were marginally less likely to come into contact with infected passengers than any other passengers on the plane.”

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Gemma2 March 21, 2018

I'd like to hear more about the 3 hour transatlantic flights mentioned. Maybe the Concorde is back in the skies?