When Arthur Danziger boarded a British Airways Boeing 777 in Tampa, Fla., bound for London’s Gatwick airport, he noted the carrier seemed to have crammed in extra seats. Then he wondered if the plane had enough air for all those additional passengers.
“The air smelled stale,” recalls Danizger, a retired oral surgeon from Lake Luzerne, N.Y. “It appeared to me that the design of the ventilation system either was not sufficient to handle such an increased load or else was not being operated properly.”
British Airways wouldn’t talk about its air supply.
Cabin air is a controversial topic these days. While airlines want to pump less fresh air into their cabins to boost profits, passengers and crews complain airplane air quality is already abysmal.
Under current federal guidelines, each passenger and crew compartment must be ventilated with at least 15 cubic feet of fresh air per minute.
But the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers recently drafted a standard for acceptable cabin air quality on commercial aircraft that called for a minimum ventilation rate of just 5 cubic feet per minute per person of outdoor air. The proposed rate isn’t expected to be considered for approval until next summer.
No one really knows how cutting the amount of fresh air pumped into the cabin by two-thirds would affect passengers. A cabin air study of 35 flight segments commissioned by the Air Transport Association concluded there was no potential for human health hazards, but the results were based on the current government air quality standards, not the proposed ones.
“There needs to be a lot more testing of both aircraft and passengers before we’re likely to start reaching any definite conclusions about cabin air,” says Heather Baldwin, editor of Aircraft Interiors magazine.
What is clear is that fresh air is a big expense for airlines. It’s estimated that American Airlines, for example, would save $40 million in fuel cost every year by recirculating 50 percent of its cabin air.
Meanwhile, passengers and flight attendants are already anxious about air quality. A recent survey by Frequent Flyer newsletter found that half of the respondents believe there is “definitely a problem with cabin air related to health problems and symptoms fliers are experiencing.”
And attendants, angry about exposure to possible contaminants, have initiated several lawsuits against Alaska Airlines and Ansett Australia. “There are serious consequences of leaking hydraulic fluid and lubrication oil in the cabin,” says Christopher Witkowski, the Association of Flight Attendants’ director of air safety and health. “We need regulations that will protect the public health of passengers and crew members.”
Mark Schlesinger, department chair of anesthesiology at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J., says he believes the worst may be yet to come: If the new standards are approved, he’s afraid passengers with asthma and heart conditions may be at greater risk when they fly.
He says he also thinks higher levels of carbon dioxide and toxins in the air could make travelers more irritable. “It could trigger more incidents of air rage,” he warns.
So carriers want to save money by reducing our supply of fresh air. Most of us probably bought a deep-discount, bargain-basement ticket, so I guess the thinking is that we don’t deserve all that air in the first place – that if we want more, we should bring our own. Maybe it’s time we air travelers started realizing that we give up certain rights when we fly. Like the right to eat a decent meal, the right to a reasonable amount of personal space and, apparently, the right to a clean, plentiful supply of air.
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