A Delta Air Lines passenger was caught walking barefoot out of an airplane lavatory, horrifying fellow travelers and scientists alike. Why the outrage? Science confirms airplane bathroom floors are breeding grounds for viruses, bacteria, and worse—making this moment literal proof we’ve failed as a species. It’s beyond the pale. Sticky. Wet floor. Bare skin.
Even those who normally don’t mind bare feet draw the line at lavatory Bigfoot: “I will walk around barefoot on almost anything, but not this. Nope. No public bathrooms.” One commenter reacted to this bold new form of extreme tourism, “Humanity is lost. Just let the asteroid hit.”
Beyond the visceral “ew” there are real public health reasons to keep your shoes on. Airplane bathrooms are notoriously cramped and filthy by the end of a flight. The liquid you see on the floor is often not water splashed down from the sink; it’s the result of turbulence and male passengers with poor aim.
And even if you will away the obvious and convince yourself it’s just water, you’re going to carry germs from everyone else’s shoes on your skin that you pick up in the lav for the entire flight unless you somehow wash your feet afterwards. And that’s really only likely in Emirates or Etihad first class flying the Airbus A380, where there are showers.
- An airplane’s floor and carpets are rarely cleaned let alone disinfected
- They can harbor fungus, viruses, fecal matter and more
- You’re trapping those microorganisms against your skin under warm, damp conditions (breeding ground) until you can wash your feet later.
- And other passengers aren’t exactly hygenic. They may have athlete’s foot, plantar warts, or other infections.
Plantar warts are caused by HPV virus particles that can live on surfaces. Public bathroom floors are prime places to catch these unwelcome souvenirs that can take months of treatment to resolve.
But isn’t it supposed to be “sterile”? That’s a myth. Even when healthy it has bacteria, and once it leaves the body it can pick up more germs. It can contain staphylococcus bacteria (which can cause skin infections) and even viruses.
Ethel Skakel Kennedy clearly took too much Tylenol while she was pregnant because her son and current Health and Human Services Secretary isn’t following the science of ‘not walking in other passengers’ pee on American Airlines.’
DISGUSTING!! What sort of person walks BAREFOOT down a plane aisle — in first class, no less. Even worse, it was on his way to the toilet!
RFK Jr is a really strange dude. pic.twitter.com/tQXdYUtGfz
— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) November 13, 2023
Bare feet don’t belong on a plane. If you’re in business class on a long flight, they’re probably giving you slippers and socks. If I’m going to take a long flight where the airline won’t offer any, I may want to take my shoes off so I’ll bring my own still-wrapped pair and stick them in my laptop bag. But you can also just… put your shoes back on before going to the lavatory.
Unfortunately it’s not just the lav that’s all crudded up, and the aircraft isn’t being sanitized between flights. Consider wiping down your area when you first board.
Here, a United Airlines business class passenger rubs their bare feet on the Polaris entertainment screen and uses their toes to change the channel.
Social norms against barefoot behavior aren’t just arbitrary – they align with scientific sense. We collectively evolved these norms because they support good public health practice. So shaming deviations from proper behavior onboard just makes sense.
Just one more sign of the mental health/life skills crisis in this country. People that live their adult lives in a child like manner. Your small child would think nothing of walking into a plane lav barefoot not understanding the consequences and the grossness of it all. But today? So many adults would be on that exact wavelength.
I use travel size Lysol wipes as soon as I sit down, regardless of airline or which cabin class. I even wipe down the seat next to me if no one is in it yet. And due to my medical conditions, I continue to mask in airports and on planes. Don’t care how many side eyes I get. The majority of humans, males especially, are disgusting.
“Science says Delta…” is the greatest US airline ever! Right, @Tim Dunn??
@George N Romey — Cluster B!
This is gross for sure. But what’s worse? People who go in barefoot or those that I see in socks that will soak up all of the nastiness? I’ve seen this on long haul flights where after 4-5 hours the lav looks like a portable toilet at a music festival.
The world is dirty Gary, get over it. While I wouldn’t PERSONALLY use the lavatory barefoot, it makes absolutely no difference if people are tracking the liquid from the lav floor through the cabin on the bottoms of their shoes or the bottoms of their feet.
And unless you’re licking the bulkheads, it doesn’t matter if people put their feet on them either.
@George: The child would think nothing of it because there’s nothing to think of. Don’t touch contaminated surfaces and then put your hands in your eyes/nose/mouth/food and you’re fine. Wash your hands after (AND BEFORE!) using the restroom. There you go. Unless you have open wounds, you’re going to be fine.
Ha! RFK Jr decided to swim in Rock Creek this May with his grandchildren despite signage warning of both chemical and bacterial contamination. It is the equivalent of bathing in lav water. Ick. And thanks Gary for pointing out HPV shedding on the lav floor. Now i want shoe covers.
An old boomer man just did this next to me on a Delta flight, comfort class, to Vancouver, Canada, last week. Thankfully, I had the window seat, and an empty middle seat between us, and then his aisle seat. He actually had taken off his trashy sneakers and had his bare feet resting on the carpeted floor. I was shocked to see this old white boomer man in jeans, tee-shirt, baseball cap, and bare feet with no shoes and no socks on the floor. I shouted out loud to him that he had bare feet on the floor and that he at least should put on socks and that the flight doesn’t provide socks like some luxury overseas airlines but that he still should at least put his own socks on. He acted like what he was doing was normal, and gave some feeble excuse about some health condition of his feet. I decided not to escalate the discussion, pulled my windbreaker hood over my head a little more to protect my peripheral vision from the sight, and did my best to mind my own business. I wish that I could afford to fly private.