Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-111)
Dr Nigel Dowdall, Dr Mark Popplestone and Mr Roger
Wiltshire
26 JUNE 2007
Q100 Lord Patel: Going back to the
question about ill patients, somebody whose oxygen perfusion is
poor anyway because of respiratory disease, and they are on a
long-haul flight of eight hours and they have an oxygen saturation
of 15%, that has no health effect?
Dr Dowdall: Not oxygen saturation. Saturation
is a different measure.
Q101 Lord Patel: I understand that.
Dr Dowdall: If you are talking about somebody
who has lung disease, then, going back to the questions we were
talking about earlier, it is contacting airlines to say, "I
have these medical problems, I would like to travel, what do I
need to do?" In those situations, many, although not all
airlines, are able to provide supplementary oxygen. If we have
people travelling who do have lung disease, who do need oxygen
on flight, that provision could be made.
Q102 Lord Patel: Going back to the
other question I had, which was about filters, what is the smallest
size of a particle?
Dr Dowdall: Off the top of my head, I could
not tell you. We could certainly find that out and provide that
information.
Q103 Lord Patel: If it was chemical,
presumably the filter gets impregnated with that chemical and
you are able to say at least whether the chemical existed or not
from that filter.
Q104 Chairman: I would speak with
experience of the filters: the same filters are used in semiconductor
clean rooms and I am a semiconductor engineer. Particles of 50
nanometres and below would probably go through, so certainly molecules
go through and some viruses go through.
Dr Dowdall: We find with viruses that they have
a tendency to clump on particles of dust, so although theoretically
they would pass through, in reality very few of them do.
Q105 Chairman: While we are on that
question, is it significant to British Airways and Virgin the
cabin pressure that can be maintained. In my experience, people
rest far more easily at lower cabin altitudes. Certainly sleep
is affected by an altitude of 8,000. Is it significant that some
aeroplanes are offering a lower cabin elevation?
Dr Dowdall: Are you talking about the new aeroplanes
that are being developed?
Q106 Chairman: The 787 is going to
have a maximum height, the Dreamliner.
Dr Dowdall: It is related to aircraft construction
and the impact of the differential cabin pressure on the life
of the aircraft and fatigue. The 8,000 regulatory maximum goes
back many years and relates to assessments that were done at war
time on healthy young airmen. Yes, in an ideal world we might
all say, "Let's have a sea level cabin pressure". The
reality is that with the technology we have had, that has not
been viable. Although, for example, Concorde, with its much smaller
dimension cabin, was able to accommodate a much higher cabin differential
pressure. It also did not fly as many flights, so fatigue was
less of an issue. But, yes, the new construction techniques using
composites offer the potential for the aircraft to be able to
be pressurised to a lower level. How important that is from a
health issue, is something that people are interested in. Indeed
the Aerospace Medical Association is just in the process of completing
a report that looks at the evidence that reducing cabin pressure
will be beneficial to health. I believe the conclusion of that
is that the evidence to support that will be limited. I think
it perhaps is more of benefit to those relatively small number
people who have conditions that will be affected by hypoxia, so
the people with the chronic lung disease. Fewer of them will require
oxygen in order to be able to travel.
Mr Wiltshire: One point of contact, of course,
is many, many people in the world, millions, live in altitudes
that one experiences in an aircraft cabin. It is quite a normal
thing to live quite happily at that altitude.
Q107 Chairman: However, I note that
the football players' association, whatever that is called, has
decided they are not going to have matches above a certain height.
Mr Wiltshire: I think for extreme sport and
energy use, but I am talking about living in the context of sitting
around or walking very gently. Certainly exercise or extreme exercise
in altitude, and I have experienced that myself, gets more difficult
the higher the altitude.
Chairman: I think you acclimatise. Frequent flyers
do better than your non-frequent flyers.
Q108 Earl of Selborne: Going back
to Lord Broers' question about the medical data which you must
hold, you appear not to be able to give us much assurance that
such data as could reasonably be made available to the AHWG-sponsored
research would be made available. Surely every member of the crew,
pilots included, of course, must have regular medical assessments.
There will be cases inevitably, in every industry, where there
will be a whole range of reasons why people may be considered
no longer fit for the job for which they are employed. This is
raw data which clearly does not have to be attributed to persons—that
would be most inappropriate—but it gives you information
which surely can be presented. If it did show, for example, that
there were cabin crew with neurological abnormalities or cognitive
impairment which was greater than might be expected, this would
be relevant data. If, on the other hand, there were not such instances,
this would also be relevant data. Why can you not make that sort
of data available?
Dr Dowdall: In terms of pilots and their routine
medical examinations, we do not require our pilots to attend British
Airways health service to have their medical. A substantial proportion
do but many do not. In terms of those baseline data, the CAA medical
department are the ones who hold most data. They have data for
all the UK airlines. In terms of long-term health, British Airways
has done probably the most comprehensive study of pilot mortality,
where we followed our pilots: we obtained data from the pension
fund as to when pilots died and we were able to get death certificates.
So we have done a very comprehensive study of pilot mortality
and that did not show any significant increases in mortality from
any causes other than melanoma, which it is thought likely to
be lifestyle related. The lifespan of pilots was, on average,
longer than comparable populations. We have that mortality data.
In terms of ill health retirements, which we have looked at, the
largest percentage of ill health retirements is for cardiac reasons
and the second largest is for psychiatric reasons. Neurological
conditions have not featured. We have those broad-brush data.
I do not think they necessarily would inform the issues of fumes
contamination.
Q109 Chairman: Let me finish with
a question about low cost airlines. They are widely perceived
to cut costs wherever they can, possibly to the detriment of comfort
or health to passengers. Do you think this is a legitimate concern?
Mr Wiltshire: The short answer is no. Low cost
airlines, as the phrase is often used, is really a description
of the new business model in the short-haul arena. Bearing in
mind many medical problems in the discussions we have had today
are about long-haul flying and the issues to do with long-haul
flying. We are talking here about short-haul flying, where a new
business model was introduced a few years ago meaning that airlines
will now operate very efficiently. It is not a matter of cutting
costs, it is operating at the lowest unit cost through operating
their aircraft very efficiently, filling their aircraft very efficiently,
and flying in the most efficient way. The result of that is that
those airlines are very interested in flying in the most fuel
efficient way and often are attracted to the most modern, most
fuel efficient aircraft. In many ways, those airlines often introduce
the newest aircraft as fast as they possibly can. It is very similar
to the tendency of charter airlines, who I think were the original
low-cost airline but sold in a more packaged way—also were
looking for efficiency wherever they could find it and often introduced
newer aircraft with higher fuel efficiency as fast as they could.
By introducing newer aircraft, in many ways they are operating
just like any other airline, and are bringing in the newest technology
and the newest cabin environment technology to passengers The
fact that they have a simple standard product I do not see has
any impact on health. Comfort obviously is a personal issue, but,
as I have mentioned in a previous answer, all airlines, be they
low-cost, charter or whatever are operating within the regulations
on seat pitch.
Q110 Chairman: Do you think they
do enough to ensure their passengers drink enough fluids during
flights.
Mr Wiltshire: This is a short-haul issue, where
I do not think dehydration is really an issue. The fact that those
airlines often do not provide fluid or provide little fluid, and
what they do they charge for, passengers are almost encouraged
to purchase a snack and a drink in the departure lounge. There
is an issue for aviation as a whole, if I may widen this answer
to the recent security regulations, where carriage of liquids
is now being controlled very seriously, perhaps with too much
rigour, because it does mean that passengers who previously, especially
on long journeys, took their own personal half a litre bottle
of liquid with them now feel less comfortable getting onboard
the aircraft because they have not been able to take that liquid
with them.
Q111 Chairman: Do you have any concerns
about the luggage situation overall? There was the time when because
some airports, perhaps notoriously Heathrow, became so slow in
getting their luggage off the planes and to the passengers, passengers
would try to carry everything with them if they possibly could,
which meant that the cabins became quite overcrowded. I suppose
the new regulations with the terrorism have cut that back again.
Do you have any concerns about the amount of luggage that ends
up in the cabins?
Mr Wiltshire: No. I believe the situation before
the recent security rules were introduced meant that some airlines
were almost encouraging passengers to take cabin baggage onboard,
which often the passengers wanted to do themselves. Many passengers
would like to travel just with hand baggage if they can. Airlines
are obviously constrained by the amount of space they have onboard
the aircraft, which means that airlines often put a size or weight
constraint on that piece of baggage or pieces of baggage that
go into the cabin. The current regulations often constrain airlines
much further than perhaps they would want to constrain their passengers.
We would always try to meet the needs of the passenger within
the constraints of the aircraft, but, as I say, security at the
moment is tending to put a constraint beyond that.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your answers to
our questions. They will be very useful to our inquiry. If anything
else occurs to you that you think would be useful to us, please
write to us or let us know in some way. We are very grateful to
you for giving up your time this morning. Thank you very much.
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