Representative Adriano Espaillat Introduces Groundbreaking Air Travelers Right to Know Act
April 10, 2024
Urges Airlines to Inform Passengers and Crew of Potential Toxic Fume Exposure While Onboard
WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Representative Adriano Espaillat (NY-13) introduced the Air Travelers Right to Know Act, a pivotal piece of legislation aimed at enhancing the safety and well-being of air travelers nationwide through airline transparency and accountability regarding potential toxic fume exposure onboard aircraft.
Sign the Petition:
https://www.change.org/p/the-airline-travelers-right-to-know-act-h-r-7962
Cabin Air Safety Act 2023
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1293/text
Flight Attendants Cheer the Cabin Air Safety Act to Stop Toxic Fumes in the Cabin
WASHINGTON — The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA) are extremely grateful to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Representative John Garamendi (D-CA), along with Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Edward J. Markey (D-MA), and U.S. Representatives Brian K. Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Kaiali’I Kahele (D-HI), and Don Bacon (R-NE), who introduced the updated Cabin Air Safety Act of 2022.
“Senators Blumenthal, Feinstein, and Markey and Representatives Garamendi, Fitzpatrick, Kahele, and Bacon are true champions for clean air onboard planes for Flight Attendants and passengers. We thank them and encourage their colleagues to join this legislation as cosponsors. Our workspace is the public’s travel space and in that space today, crews and passengers are breathing toxins and it has to stop,” said AFA International President Sara Nelson.
AFA’s efforts to improve the cabin environment span the last three decades, from advocating for smoke-free skies to stopping poisonous pesticide spraying to addressing the dangers of contaminated bleed air. We advocate that the airline industry either end the use of engine bleed air for cabin air supply like on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner or mitigate the circulation of contaminated air. In 2015, AFA was an active member of the ICAO task group that published Circular 344, which advises airlines to enhance their operational procedures to minimize onboard exposure to smoke and fumes. This led to an FAA Safety Alert published in 2018.
“Over the last two years of the pandemic we’ve learned the importance of clean air on planes — not just from COVID but other toxins. Most Americans go to work with the expectation of breathing clean air. Flight Attendants don’t have this guarantee, and it is past time for that to change.” Nelson stated.
The bill would protect airline passengers and crew from the harmful effects of toxic cabin air.
Aircraft Cabin Air Conference 2024
The 2024 Aircraft Cabin Air Conference will take place on Tuesday 17th + Wednesday 18th September 2024. The conference follows on from the previous in-person events of 2017/2019 and will take place at Imperial College in Kensington, London.
The 2024 conference will present for the first time the ground breaking new blood test designed to confirm exposure of an individual to aryl phosphates present in jet engine oils. It will also present engineering & maintenance updates, solutions emerging for manufacturers, airlines and aircraft operators such as air cleaning / filtration technologies. New jet turbine oils coming soon to the market will also be discussed. Additionally, the flight safety implications, the aircraft environment, latest air monitoring data and sensor technology, legal cases, the latest scientific research, medical aspects and much more, will also be presented by over 30 speakers and films.
Aircraft Air Quality and Bleed Air Contamination Detection
DOT/FAA/TC-21/45
Federal Aviation Administration
William J. Hughes Technical Center
Aviation Research Division
Atlantic City International Airport
New Jersey 08405
May 2022
This report is available at the Federal Aviation Administration William J. Hughes Technical Center’s Full-Text Technical Reports page: actlibrary.tc.faa.gov in Adobe Acrobat portable document format (PDF).
16.Abstract
The purpose of this project was to provide a data-driven process to identify sensing technology with good potential for detecting bleed air contamination from engine oil, hydraulic fluid, or deicing fluid. Reports from major aircraft cabin air studies were reviewed to identify the range of constituents that can be expected in cabin air, especially as they pertain to the aforementioned contaminants and their potential markers. One of the projects was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Vehicle Integrated Propulsion Research (NASA-VIPR) project where controlled amounts of engine oil were injected into the engine compressor of a C-17 transport aircraft and the resulting contaminants in the bleed air measured. Three additional cabin air quality studies conducted on revenue flights were reviewed. These three studies provide data for a combined total of 249 flights on a variety of makes and models of aircraft. These studies provide adequate documentation of typical aircraft cabin air. Information from this review was used to identify potential markers of the bleed air contaminants. Additionally, collaboration was established with several technical committees from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), American Society of Heating, Air-Conditioning and Refrigerating Engineers (ASHRAE), and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and with project personnel from the prior European Union Aviation Safety Administration (EASA)-funded cabin air study. Key objectives of the project were to identify sensors and sensing technology with potential for detection of one or more of the three aforementioned bleed air contaminants and to develop a plan for test stand engine experiments to evaluate the sensors with controlled amounts of the three contaminants. Sensors and instruments were identified and a test plan was developed. Additionally, through the collaboration with ASHRAE 1830 and the support of the industry working group, many of the experiments identified in the test plan were completed. The analysis of the data from these experiments is ongoing and will be reported in the ASHRAE 1830 project report. However, preliminary assessment of the sensing technology has been possible.
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:US:b42bb645-ee81-466c-9d9d-b688e5e6ca11
