Pathogens On A Plane: How To Stay Healthy In Flight

"If you want to cut your risk of catching the flu on your next flight, pick a window seat and stay put."

"That's a key take-home message of a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

"'I have always chosen window seats,' says Vicki Hertzberg, a biostatistician at Emory University, who co-led the research with scientists at The Boeing Co. 'But after this study, I have stopped moving around as much on flights.'"

"People in window seats come into contact with fewer passengers, Hertzberg and her team found, because they leave their seats less often than those sitting near the aisle. And they are farther away from the action in the aisle, with its potentially coughing and otherwise germy passersby."

""So the window seats are a little less risky than the aisle seats,' Hertzberg says."