The phrase ‘airline food’ may conjure up images of weirdly square eggs, grey vegetables and a plastic cup of budget riesling.

But maybe it should generate a big, neon ‘health hazard!’ warning in your head.

For too long airlines have gotten away with a ‘profit over health’ attitude by failing to employ correct food handling practices, according to Australian PhD student Andrew Grout and a UK co-author writing in Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.

Australia holds the dubious honour of hosting the world’s worst recorded disease outbreak attributed to airline food – a contaminated batch of orange juice linked to more than 3000 cases of norovirus on flights in 1991.