In Washington, the Consumer Travel Alliance is looking at different approaches to the problems of change fees for the sick and at the increasingly cramped seating in coach. Instead of petitioning the airlines for redress, perhaps the best avenue is to use medical and safety regulations against airline policies. Afterall, airline income shouldn’t trump health and safety of the flying public.
Airlines force the sick and contagious to fly by onerous change fees
We don’t need any studies to prove this fact of traveling life. Every traveler has been seated near someone who shouldn’t be in a closed area with other passengers. Sneezing, sniffling and flu-like symptoms, especially in the upcoming flu season, make these travelers dangerous to others.
However, do passengers with contagious diseases have any choice about changing flights? Not really.
Airlines charge extreme change fees and have just raised those fees with no justification. Even under direct Aviation Subcommittee interrogation, Mr. Parker, CEO of US Airways, had no justifications for the airlines increase of their change fees back in the spring of 2013. When asked what industry event or change in economics prompted airlines to jack up change fees by $50 (in unison), the US Airways CEO had no answer.
The Centers for Disease Control should look at these “no-exception” airline policies that put the sick together with the healthy for prolong periods of time. After sneezing and wheezing, passengers than wipe their hands on headrests and hand rests, spreading the virus.
Though aircraft air may not be considered a problem by some experts when it comes to transmitting diseases, the proximity of the sick and contagious to the healthy is a problem. The World Health Organization arrived at that conclusion.
Transmission of infection may occur between passengers who are seated in the same area of an aircraft, usually as a result of the infected individual coughing or sneezing or by touch (direct contact or contact with the same parts of the aircraft cabin and furnishings that other passengers touch).
Maybe the Center for Disease Control needs to work with the FAA and institute a regulation requiring airlines to allow free rebooking of sick contagious passengers.
Deep venous thrombosis (DVT)
This is not a new problem. For decades the link between long-haul flights and DVT has been documented. However, the airlines have done nothing to help. In fact, since the first studies were released in the ’70s, airlines have only pushed seats closer together, decreasing the seat pitch and making the problem worse. Perhaps this is another place that the medical authorities can look at health as a factor in airline regulation rather than only relying on customer service and comfort.
Symington and Stack, who reported an apparent increase in DVT in air travelers compared to non-travelers, first described “Economy Class Syndrome” or “Traveler’s Thrombosis” in 1977. The incidence was attributed to cramped seating in the coach cabin. Prolonged periods of inactivity caused by space limitations may slow circulation and produce edema (leg swelling). In addition, bent knees compress the popliteal vein (the deep vein behind the knee), creating a potential site for clot formation over time. Low oxygen, low humidity (dry air), and low cabin pressure at high elevations have a dehydrating effect that concentrate the blood, making it sluggish. This effect is worsened when passengers consume alcohol, or do not adequately replenish fluids lost by dehydration. The body’s natural clot busters typically counter the tendency to clot in these situations; however, in the presence of known hypercoagulable risk factors such as the Factor V Leiden and the Prothrombin G20210 mutations (as well as obesity, smoking, and oral contraceptives) the risk of DVT could be further increased. At this year’s ISTH meeting, several studies attempted to scientifically document a passenger’s general tendency to clot after air travel.
Aircraft emergency evacuation certification
There are strict rules for aircraft evacuation when it comes to commercial airplanes.
As part of the certification process, aircraft manufacturers are required to demonstrate that an aircraft, in maximum density configuration, can be completely evacuated within 90 seconds using only half of the total number of emergency exits. Use of only half of the exits simulates the potential for failed evacuation devices or exits blocked due to fire or structural damage. Ninety seconds has been established as the maximum evacuation time because tests have shown that, in a post crash fire, conditions conducive to flashover are unlikely to occur within that time span. However, the experience of actual evacuations, especially unexpected ones from full aircraft where the abnormal situation occurs suddenly at or soon after landing, indicates that evacuation times usually exceed durations demonstrated for certification purposes.
However, these evacuation tests are not completed with coach seats set at 28-30 inches of pitch to which many coach seats on carriers are set. The Consumer Travel Alliance has initiated a series of questions to the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) questioning the certification of aircraft evacuation standards when seat pitch has been reduced and the average load factor is nearing 90 percent.
Even current standards are deemed unrealistic.
Many even in the industry quite openly acknowledge that those bubblegum sprints represent nothing more than the fact that the aircraft has met an artificial benchmark, one however that gives no indicator of aircraft performance in a real accident.
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One thing is certain, evacuations whether real, computer-generated or live full-scale experiments are always a fusion of three major components combining aircraft, crew and passengers such as exit availability, configuration, and cabin behaviour. And if you change the nature of the one of those components, you intrinsically change the outcome of the evacuation: something that lends itself perfectly to simulation through the possibility of performing an unlimited number of repeat simulations for any particular scenario.
In the Boeing 777 emergency test above, note that the passengers all look like athletes. There were no old passengers, no small children, no trauma, no smoke and no passengers dragging along carry-on luggage; in fact; no luggage anywhere!
It’s time that the aviation industry takes another look at evacuation of aircraft and begins a more realistic testing regime using “worst case scenarios” with seats set at the average current pitch and planes packed as they are today.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
