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Nosing Around
The Travel Critic · October 26, 1998

Travel stinks. Take it from Ed Huntsman, who's been gagging his way through airport terminals, aircraft cabins and hotel rooms.

"The first thing many passengers do when they get to the airport is to head for the bar and puff up three or four cigarettes in twenty minutes with a beer," complains Huntsman, a Phoenix consultant. "Then they stink up the cabin four rows in every direction while the rest of us have to either smell their stench or suffocate."

He's not alone. Numerous readers have written lately to vent about travelers who eat spicy food, have bad personal hygiene, use too much perfume or cologne, smoke before boarding a flight or get juiced in the bar prior to takeoff.

"Why would anyone about to sit on a plane for five hours load up on perfume rather than use it after arrival?" asks one reader. "I just returned to San Francisco on a full flight, directly next to such a person. By touchdown, I felt so sick I actually began to think I'd caught a virus."

If only that were the extent of it. The travel experience is filled with other more menacing odors, like mold. Indoor air quality expert and frequent flier Judy Bates smells it in hotel air conditioning ducts. Because she has a mild allergy to the microscopic fungus-it gives her headaches and makes her feel ill-she must often forfeit temperature-controlled rooms.

"The last time I was in San Antonio, I checked into my room and tried to turn off the air conditioning," remembers Bates, director of research and development for a Racine, Wis., carpet cleaning company. "It got really hot, so I turned it back on. But I couldn't handle it for more than four to five minutes. The mold was terrible."

It gets worse. Airplanes are noxious nightmares, inside and out, says environmental expert Elyse Kost.

There's jet exhaust. "Any byproduct of combustion creates a number of volatile compounds," she says. "It's not healthy."

And then there's the air in the cabin. Because most of the air is recirculated, she says, "there are lots of toxins."

These may include plenty of carbon dioxide (which would be great if we photosynthesized instead of feeding on airline food), as well as residual gases made by solutions used to clean and maintain the aircraft.

Kost, an industrial hygienist at Environmental Waste Management Associates in Parsippany, N.J., points out that the amount of chemicals we're allowed to breathe is strictly regulated by the government. But I get the feeling that at 35,000 feet, with all the aircraft doors sealed tightly shut and the bureaucrats off in some Washington D.C. office building, no one's going to make a fuss about a few toxins.

But for the most part, frequent travelers seem more concerned about a seatmate with garlic breath. And why not? The garlic usually smells a lot worse than the poison.

At least garlic's a natural odor. A few years ago when I was on a trip between New York and Barbados, the flight attendants passed through the aisles, spraying a clear aerosol from unlabeled cans shortly before takeoff. A couple of passengers gasped as the mist entered their nostrils and mouth, but no one complained. I later asked a crew member what they'd sprayed. She said it was pesticide.

So this summer's news that domestic airlines regularly fogged their fleet with bug killer came as no surprise to me. Some of the ingredients in the offending compounds have been linked a variety of ailments, including respiratory problems, skin reactions and cancer. The trade publication Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News reported that Northwest Airlines sprays Saga, a residual pesticide, on its domestic flights while planes are in the hangar.

Northwest spokesman Doug Killian told Mother Jones magazine the carrier sprays because "there is a possibility that insects and rodents can get on board." (Since the story, Northwest has reviewed its pest control program. Killian told me the airline is a "leader" in responsible pest control efforts, adding "the safety of our passengers and employees is our primary concern.")

But will carriers and hotels ever really clear the air?

I'm not holding my breath.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.