Microbiological analysis on the environmental hygiene for galley equipment, safety equipment and cabin common facilities of a local airline in Malaysia

Academic literatures with regard to environmental hygiene in the aviation industry are very limited and have not received laborious research. This condition produced a vacuum of knowledge that has been long overdue. As such, this study presented an opportunity with the aim to determine the environmental hygiene of airplanes operated by a local airline in Malaysia. Ninety nine swab samples (n=99) were collected from four distinctive medium haul inbound flight sectors into Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia. Two of the airports were that of the developing countries of India and Bangladesh and the other two airports were selected from a developed countries of Japan and Australia. These samples were analyzed using conventional microbiological aerobic mesophilic plate count. The findings revealed that the environmental hygiene of the galley equipment (GE), safety equipment (SE) and cabin common facilities (CF) showed a low prevalence of bacterial contamination where 24 (4.4%), 4 (4.04%) and 6 (6.06%) samples were reported, respectively. The report concluded that 69 (67.7%) samples fell within the good level of hygiene where the colony counts were <20 mL/ CFU and 12 (12.12%) samples were reported as having acceptable level of hygiene where the colony counts fell within 21 to 100 CFU/mL. However, 18 (18.2%) samples indicated to have unacceptable level of hygiene with colony counts more than 100 CFU/mL. These results sugggested that the prevalence of the bacteria does not depend as to whether the country is developing or already a developed nation. Even though Bangaluru and Dhaka are both airports of developing countires yet the number of contaminated samples were reported at 20 and 3 samples, respectively. Whereas airports of developed countries of Sydney and Narita produced 8 and 3 contaminated samples, respectively. More importantly, as frontliners who handled the GE, SE and, CF interchangeably, continuous awareness programs highlighting effective housekeeping and good personal hygiene behaviors among the flight attendants are imperative.