Toxic fumes seep into the air you breathe on planes

I've told about a dozen friends about this when I got home. While all of them found it very unpleasant, only one other person had to be sick.

Apparently to a similar degree. It seems that the European airlines are doing a good job (DHL, Lufthansa) as mentioned in the article about mandating this stuff.

The 787 was intended as a more electric aircraft, from the very start, even called the "7E7" during development. An electrical ECS requires special cabin air compressors with big motor drives and power electronics, but there was significant savings for the engines by removing bleed air. It makes sense as a system: Electrical main engine start, generator-optimized engines/APU, electrical cabin air compressors. But the trade criteria were the typical ones: weight, installation volume, total lifecycle cost, etc.

The choice of a lower cabin altitude _was_ a big deal though, and if I had to guess, is the main source of a more pleasant experience.

The main ECS vendors (Honeywell, Hamilton Sundstrand, and Liebherr) all have cabin air quality products, which have mostly gone without interest by the aircraft manufactures and the airlines.

Air nozzle.

First thing I do when I get to my seat is turn it on full blast, point it at my nose. Leave it that way until deplaning.

I used to actually really enjoy flying but the experience has severely degraded over the years. My chief complaints are insanely tight seat density, shitty food / flight amenities, and a terrible boarding process.

Bang for the buck, I’d say our preference became car, train, fancy bus, flying, bad bus.

They all pretty much take the same time, door to door, because the airports are not particularly accessible from our starting point and destination.

The key factors were autonomy and punctuality. If the train or bus hit traffic or broke down, you were totally screwed. Sometimes for hours. If the car hit traffic, we stopped for dinner. The plane is the most expensive, and provides some of the worst experiences of the three. They were rarely late, but really made you suffer for the price.

I never thought I’d become a car person, and yet here I am!

https://www.statista.com/statistics/564717/airline-industry-...

Airlines learned from previous mistakes and basically would not add any capacity until load factors were incredibly high and they knew they could easily fill another flight. Very rarely would someone get bumped 10 plus years ago but in the last few years it was common practice. The planes were stuffed full where even the very back rows typically left open for flight attendants were filled.

I used to take at least one trip every week for 20 years and it wasn't so bad. After 911 it became worse but the flight was still ok. The last 3-4 years have been absolutely terrible. Even 1st/Business class was a joke and always oversold. I developed anxiety every time I had to fly simply because of the nightmare of getting through the lines (TSA/Customs/DHS), fighting the crowds, no where to even sit, dirty planes, etc. Flying became like riding in a cattle car.

I still fly about once a month and ever since the pandemic it's a lot more pleasant. My last flight had over 100 empty seats and absolutely no lines or people at the airport. Reminded my of a flight I once took to YYZ from DFW on a 727 in 91. I and two more guys were the only passengers on the whole plane, 2 in coach and the other in 1st. Three of us on the whole plane. Felt like a Rock Star on my own private jet....

I'm confident that flying will become miserable again. In another year I expect everything will be back to shit/normal.

For example, in March 2018, Jeff Dean defended Google making Tensor Flow video analysis software for the US military (to use to decide which Pakistani families to assassinate [0]). He calmly and normally presented the technology. When he presented his rationalization for the project, he blinked continuously. I think he was lying.

Having a senior engineering position in a large company does not imply integrity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan

The actual 737 Max design problems were caused by Boeing, then false documents were filed with the FAA, so you could argue that beyond the ODM system, Boeing deliberately misled the FAA, subverting the safety certification process.

The challenge with cockpit/cabin air quality is that fundamentally air flows from high pressure to low pressure in both a local as well as a global manner. So each airplane model and perhaps each example would need to be studied for air quality. Although airliners are air-tight pressure vessels, I don't think this is as simple as one might think.

I also have noticed strange smells or emissions in the cabin on some flights, so it appears to be a real issue. What people don't understand is that an airliner is a big machine beyond human scale, so even a minor problem on the scale of an airliner can have a big effect on a row of passengers.

Source: commercially-rated pilot, study aerodynamics.

And this point: "The committee also said “multiple independent whistleblowers contacted the committee to allege FAA senior management was complicit in determining the 737 MAX training certification level prior to any evaluation.”"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-737-max/boeing-ina...

Hah and someone down voted my upper comment without saying why. The FAA has serious issues.