It is serious business to sit in the same row as someone who is contagious with an unknown illness.
The trouble with keeping commercial flights clean / Fox News
Airlines and businesses set their own standards in cleaning but they can't discriminate when someone boards a flight and is contagious.
So, the trouble starts with cleaning but also involves people who don't self-quarantine when they're seriously ill or contagious. They still take flights, they go shopping, they go out for coffee and they're in public with unknown conditions.
In August, I flew from Pennsylvania to California. The plane didn't seem clean because there were used Kleenex in the pocket in front of me left behind from another passenger. I didn't touch them. Then, we were delayed for more than two hours at the gate for electrical and electronic problems with our plane. During that time of delay, we sat on the plane calmly waiting it out. All the while, there was a girl in her 20s in my row of three hacking and coughing during the wait. The CDC says you can catch a virus six feet away from a simple cough or more. Six feet... ugh.
My initial thought when I heard the girl coughing, sometimes uncontrollably: "I don't want to catch whatever she has...I won't be able to work if I get that sick."
I talk for a living.
I give public speeches.
If I get the flu or laryngitis, it makes it difficult to do my work.
So, we were delayed for two hours and then we flew for five and half hours on our flight. Throughout that entire time, this girl was coughing, hacking, and sniffing. She was unable to sleep despite it being a darkened plane and late night flight.
A couple of days after the flight, I got a sore throat and then I started coughing. I knew I caught something on that plane, probably from the girl who was coughing, but possibly from a lack of cleaning between passengers. Who had been sitting in my seat on prior flights?
So, how much cleaning is being done on planes?
And what cleaners are being used between passengers?
Where has this plane been before my flight?
How safe is it to fly on an airplane?
Why wasn't the used Kleenex removed from the pocket in front of my seat?
With the Ebola virus now in the mix, the public needs answers to these questions and more. It took me a full round of antibiotics and two weeks to recover from this flu/cold I caught on the plane. For someone with a weakened immune system, it could have taken longer.
The skies may be friendly to fly...but are they safe for our health?
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