As corona continues to spread, passengers, tend to be worried and more careful to board a flight with possible carriers of the virus on board.
following the fact that, there is no vaccine or cure for coronavirus at the moment, in view of that, some researches were conducted to know if there are places a passenger can sit in an airplane and not be infected or have low risk of coming in contact with an infected passenger.
The Window Seat
Those in window seats are less likely to get up from their seat, with just 43 per cent moving around the aircraft compared to 80 per cent of people in aisle seats, meaning they’re less likely to come into contact with virus carriers.
One of the study’s diagrams show the likelihood of travellers coming into contact with one designated infectious passenger based on where they’re sitting. Other than those sitting on the same row as patient zero, all window seat passengers have a 5 per cent or less chance of coming into contact. Most had a 0-1 per cent probability, far lower than their middle and aisle seat counterparts.
However, the study stresses that transmission risk is relatively low on a flight. The probability of actually being infected by patient zero fell to 0-1 per cent for the vast majority of all passengers, apart from those sitting on the same row or across the aisle.
But, this takes a different dimension, when flight attendants are ill, rather than a passenger, as they move around the cabin much more and can spend more prolonged one-on-one time with individual passengers. The vast majority of aisle and middle seat passengers had a 4-5 per cent chance of becoming infected, while window seat passengers were the safest again, with most having a 0-1 per cent chance of infection.
“Our simulations indicate that an infectious flight attendant can generate several infections; thus, it is imperative that flight attendants should not fly when they are ill,” said Howard Weiss, one of the study’s leaders.
The study was conducted by a team which flew on 10 flights, mostly on Boeing 757 aircraft, of between 3.5 and 5 hours from Atlanta to five destinations on the US West Coast.