travel

Why you should never EVER touch the tray tables on an airplane.

Planes are so, so germy.

While it’s easy to see there’d be a lot of germs huddled together in the toilet, joining the mile high club – there’s also a lot of germs sitting right in front of you.

Yep, scientists have found that most of the germs on planes actually live on the tray tables.

germs plane tray tables
Image via iStock.
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You know those nifty little tables you flip down, nice and close to your lap, and eat your food off.

For an experiment for TravelMath, a scientist collected 26 samples from four flights and five airports - and tested the samples for germs.

From the samples, the microbiologist determined the tray tables were the germiest parts of the plane - with 2,155 colony forming bacteria.

This was far more than what he found in the toilet, which kind of makes sense because the toilets are cleaned regularly.

The couple who retired in their 30s and travelled the world. Post continues...

Meanwhile, in a recent Reddit thread, flight attendants revealed that tray tables are very rarely cleaned.

It's not exactly ideal, considering travellers depend on their tray tables for so many functions - eating and drinking off them, setting them up as a makeshift office, even falling asleep on them.

That's a whole lot of germs.

We'll definitely be packing our anti-bacterial wipes next time we fly.