The Airplane Cabin Microbiome.

Serving over three billion passengers annually, air travel serves as a conduit for infectious disease spread, including emerging infections and pandemics. Over two dozen cases of in-flight transmissions have been documented. To understand these risks, a characterization of the airplane cabin microbiome is necessary. Our study team collected 229 environmental samples on ten transcontinental US flights with subsequent 16S rRNA sequencing. We found that bacterial communities were largely derived from human skin and oral commensals, as well as environmental generalist bacteria. We identified clear signatures for air versus touch surface microbiome, but not for individual types of touch surfaces. We also found large flight-to-flight beta diversity variations with no distinguishing signatures of individual flights, rather a high between-flight diversity for all touch surfaces and particularly for air samples. There was no systematic pattern of microbial community change from pre- to post-flight. Our findings are similar to those of other recent studies of the microbiome of built environments. In summary, the airplane cabin microbiome has immense airplane to airplane variability. The vast majority of airplane-associated microbes are human commensals or non-pathogenic, and the results provide a baseline for non-crisis-level airplane microbiome conditions.

Behaviors, movements, and transmission of droplet-mediated respiratory diseases during transcontinental airline flights.

With over 3 billion airline passengers annually, the inflight transmission of infectious diseases is an important global health concern. Over a dozen cases of inflight transmission of serious infections have been documented, and air travel can serve as a conduit for the rapid spread of newly emerging infections and pandemics. Despite sensational media stories and anecdotes, the risks of transmission of respiratory viruses in an airplane cabin are unknown. Movements of passengers and crew may facilitate disease transmission. On 10 transcontinental US flights, we chronicled behaviors and movements of individuals in the economy cabin on single-aisle aircraft. We simulated transmission during flight based on these data. Our results indicate there is low probability of direct transmission to passengers not seated in close proximity to an infectious passenger. This data-driven, dynamic network transmission model of droplet-mediated respiratory disease is unique. To measure the true pathogen burden, our team collected 229 environmental samples during the flights. Although eight flights were during Influenza season, all qPCR assays for 18 common respiratory viruses were negative.

Logistic growth of a surface contamination network and its role in disease spread.

Surfaces and objects surround us, and touching them is integral to everyday life. Pathogen contaminated surfaces (fomites) are known to transmit diseases. However, little is known about the ways and speed at which surfaces become contaminated. We found that under certain conditions, the number of contaminated surfaces grows logistically, corresponding to possible rapid transmission of infection. In such a surface network, pathogen can be transmitted great distances quickly-as far as people move. We found that the surface contamination network in aircraft cabins exhibits a community structure, with small communities connected by the aisle seatback surfaces and toilets, which are high-touch surfaces. In less than two to three hours, most high-touch surfaces in the cabin are contaminated, and within five to six hours nearly all touchable surfaces are contaminated. During short haul flight, aisle passengers have higher fomite exposure. This closely matches the spatial infection pattern of one reported inflight norovirus outbreaks. Our model is generally applicable to other crowded settings. The commonly repeated advice to "wash hands frequently" may be replaced in future by more strategic advice such as "clean surfaces right now", or advice based on who should wash their hands, and when.