Video: Apparently, Window Seats Are Much Dirtier Than Aisle Seats...

A video is going viral, talking about things which are quite literally viral. Germs, dust, dirt and spreadable viruses found on planes are a travellers worst nightmare, and a horrifying combo in the form of a YouTube video and actual research seems to confirm that window seats are appallingly disgusting. While on the subject of statistics, surveys have also shown that people who take said window seats are selfish. Who knew? Here’s everything you didn’t want to know about window seats, and a video that’s as cringe as they get…

If you’ve ever gotten off a plane feeling like you’d landed in a tar pit, you’re not all that far off. Planes are simply not cleaned to a standard anyone would hope for, and a recent video goes to simple yet effective lengths to quite literally illustrate that point. In a video posted by The Sun, a passenger takes a cleaning towelette to the head rest on the three seats in the row. In uncanny fashion, there’s a clear progression from cleanest to least, with the window seat being the worst.

Oddly, it all makes sense. Cleaning crews get mere moments to give a plane a wipe down in between increasingly tight departure schedules, and naturally, cleaning crews focus their efforts on the easy to reach places, and since everything is defined by the actual aisle of the plane, aisle seats are easiest to wipe down. Alarmingly, a recent study found that of all surfaces in the seat area, the headrest was the most contaminated, with regular occurrences of E coli being found during swabs.

Always wipe your seat down with an antibacterial towelette, whenever possible and if you really want to take it further, go for the aisle. If you want to protect yourself from other passengers too, wearing a scarf is actually a great tip, since you can cover your nose and mouth if you hear a cough. According to researchers, this is one of the simplest yet most effective ways of not taking germs into the body. Hear the cough, pull the scarf up over your nose and mouth, and keep it there for a few seconds.