Flight attendants reveal the disgusting spot it’s best to by no means put your coat on a airplane

When you board a plane, the first thing you’ll want to do is get comfortable.

Coat off? Tick. Headphones in? Tick. Bag tucked away? Tick.

You might think it’s a good idea to shove your coat, along with your bag, in the overhead locker, so it’s out of your way and not taking up any of the (already limited) room in your seat.

But that would be a mistake, Loretta Hill, a flight attendant with JetBlue Airways with a decade of experience, shared.

Flight attendants have revealed the disgusting spot you should never put your coat on a plane – and it’s highly surprising, because it might be exactly where you usually store your belongings.

The overhead locker is shockingly disgusting – and definitely not where you want to be keeping something you wear.

Another flight attendant, Emilia Ryan, told Reader’s Digest: ‘Those overhead bins can get pretty dirty.

‘Mostly because anything that comes in on the wheels of a suitcase ends up there, along with the occasional exploded bottle of lotion.’

You might think it’s smart to put your coat in an overhead locker – but it isn’t

Suitcase wheels, it was recently revealed, are 58 times dirtier than a toilet seat.

So you certainly don’t want to be touching them, or having your items of clothing in close contact.

Emilia also explained they’re not usually on the crew’s routine cleaning list, so they aren’t regularly polished up. 

It’s also unhelpful to store any jackets up there, as it takes up space reserved for carry-on bags.

Plus, microbiologist Jason Tetro told Reader’s Digest: ‘Unlike most places in the airplane, the overhead locker does not usually experience much human contact because we tend to shove things in them, not crawl into them.

‘However, the luggage that’s shoved in there will come with its own bacteria due to contact with all sorts of surfaces. 

‘Expect names like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus and maybe the odd yeast.’

These aren’t the first experts to warn against storing your coat here. 

Storing your coat on board can be a conundrum as they often take up lots of space

Last month, flight attendant Mateusz Maszczynski revealed this is one mistake travellers occasionally make with their coats when boarding the plane. 

The coats take up lots of space too, slowing down processes on board. 

Mateusz said that it is often ‘filthy’ and says ‘the thought of putting my coat into an overhead locker seriously gives me the ick’. 

Instead, store your coat at your feet, on your lap, inside your carry-on itself or behind your back.