Latest news with #AssociationofFlightAttendants
USA Today
02-07-2025
- Automotive
- USA Today
Why your flight sometimes feels too hot or too cold
If you fly enough (or you're unlucky), you're eventually bound to wind up on a plane that, at some point, is either way too hot or way too cold. Especially as we head into the hottest part of the summer, experts warn it's likely that airplanes can become uncomfortably warm inside, especially while they're on the ground. 'It's like sitting in the car in the parking lot and the whole family is going, 'Turn the car on! Turn the car on!' to get the air conditioner going,' Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, told me. Nelson's organization has long advocated federal standards for airplane cabin temperatures, but so far, she said, no such regulations exist. While some airlines have their own policies, they're not always followed. In the meantime, Nelson said, there are some things travelers can do to minimize their own risks in an overheated cabin, and to help advocate for safer standards across the industry. How climate control works on an airplane In general, airplane climate control is very similar to the heating and cooling system in a car, but the power source can vary by phase of flight. 'The thing to keep in mind is the power source that's used to do that can vary depending on if the engines are running,' Laurie Garrow, a civil engineering professor specializing in aviation at Georgia Tech, told me. She said that during flight and while taxiing, airplanes typically use power from their engines to run systems onboard, including the climate control system, but while at the gate, they may rely on a less powerful auxiliary power unit or an external air supply for climate control. Similarly, while taxiing, airplanes may only use one engine to conserve fuel, which limits how much power is available for other systems. When you get in a situation where you're running on one engine and trying to do all that ... you're putting it under more strenuous situations to try to keep the cabin cool,' Garrow said. Why can planes be so hot, or so cold? Nelson said that external factors play a big role in the temperature onboard an airplane. 'Especially in the summer, especially with delays, being out on the hot tarmac, if the APU's not running or the engine's not running, the cabin can get very hot very quickly,' she said. It's part of the reason flight attendants typically tell passengers, especially in warm weather, to lower their shades and open their air vents once the plane is parked at the gate. Nelson added that cold weather can affect planes, too, and it can be a challenge to keep things comfortable onboard on the ground during the winter. Last week's Cruising Altitude: After the fatal Concorde crash, could supersonic flight return? On top of that, she said, different parts of the cabin can be a different temperature, and often the climate controls are in the cockpit, which is separate from the passenger cabin anyway. 'The temperature can range as much as 10 degrees throughout the cabin," she said. Factors like galley and exit locations and even whether or not the plane has onboard screens can affect the temperature. What to do if your plane's temperature isn't comfortable Nelson said that extreme temperatures onboard can pose a safety risk. During the summer, an overheated airplane cabin can give passengers heat stroke or can exacerbate other medical conditions they may have. She said on a recent flight she was seated next to a cardiologist. When the plane began to overheat during a delay, the doctor strongly advocated that the flight return to the gate, because he worried about the risk of a passenger having a heart attack due to the extreme temperature. Nelson said it's important for passengers to advocate for themselves if they're not comfortable on the plane. 'It is important to let the crew know what your experience is,' she said. While flight attendants don't always have direct control over the cabin temperature, they can coordinate with the pilots to adjust the thermostat, or return to the gate if it's really getting dangerous. The Association of Flight Attendants also has an app, available on Apple and Android devices, called 2Hot2Cold, which allows passengers and crews to file reports about extreme cabin temperatures. Nelson said AFA uses data from those reports to advocate for cabin temperature standards. While the 2024 Federal Aviation Reauthorization required further research of aircraft cabin temperature standards, Nelson said the agency has not moved forward since a study was conducted. In the meantime, she said, it's important for travelers to dress in layers and to make sure to have water available to them on the plane in case it starts to overheat. Garrow said that she has been on flights that were too hot herself, and that she tries not to get too overwhelmed, because it's not something she can control directly. 'I try to stay hydrated and try to focus not on the heat,' she said. 'I focus on meditating on something else.'
Daily Mirror
09-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Real reason planes are so cold according to flight attendants
Frequent flyers know to bring an extra layer on board an airplane. But cooler cabin temperatures, while somewhat inconvenient, actually benefit passengers, ensuring they have a more pleasant journey. Aeroplanes are notorious for being quite chilly, and the complementary blanket on long-haul flights does not always help. But there is a reason the temperature in the cabin is kept cool, according to flight attendants. Senior international cabin crew member and the creator of A Fly Guy's Cabin Crew Lounge, Jay Robert, shared the reason behind cabin temperature, and it's more complex than you may have expected. According to Robert, the cool mercury is not necessarily a bad thing either, and may end up benefiting your flight experience.. Speaking to UniLad Tech in 2024, Robert explained the mechanics of a plane's air conditioning system. 'When the plane is at the gate, it's cooled using an external air conditioning system. Once in the air, the aircraft relies on its internal cooling system, powered by the engines,' he clarifies. Robert went on to explain that flight attendants have limited capacity to adjust the plane's thermostat through their cabin control system. Rather it is the plane's pilots that are in charge of the main thermostat and any significant changes to temperature are their call. Taylor Garland, spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants, said that airplane cabins are divided into zones for temperature control. But that the process of temperature control on a plane is an 'imperfect science'. Garland explained: 'If a zone is large and/or the temperature sensor is near a source of heat - just like if the thermostat at home is near a heating vent - then the system will think that the cabin is warmer than it is.' Robert suggested that cool temperatures should not be avoided though, as they can be beneficial to passengers' health and safety. In recalling working on a large aircraft carrying over 600 passengers, Robert said he had to regularly check that the temperature did not go above 73°F (23C). He explained that he had to keep a close watch on the temperature because passengers are more likely to faint if temperatures exceed 75°F (24C). Colder air helps counteract the effects of the cabin's dry, pressurised environment, which can contribute to dehydration and dizziness. There is also one sequential benefit of cool air on planes: a pleasant-smelling cabin. According to Robert, warmer cabins 'smell funkier' because heat energises odour-causing molecules, resulting in bad smells building up quicker. That said, many people find themselves feeling sick after flying. This is likely because of the close proximity to other passengers and the cold temperature can make some travellers particularly uncomfortable, especially with an air conditioning unit above their heads. If you are hoping to avoid a cold, travel expert Yasmin Peckel has provided key tips for picking the perfect seat. She has warned against picking the aisle seat. "Research indicates that those seated in the aisle are more at risk of catching germs, as you'll come into contact with a far greater number of people during your flight. If you're concerned about catching something, it's a sensible idea to choose a window seat instead,! Peckel explains. She continues: 'Aeroplane air is usually circulated through hospital grade filters, designed to contain and remove bacteria. This means that germs are unlikely to be directly transmitted beyond a meter.'
CBS News
02-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Minnesotans rally around the state for immigrant and workers' rights on May Day
What Minnesotans rallied for during annual May Day demonstration What Minnesotans rallied for during annual May Day demonstration What Minnesotans rallied for during annual May Day demonstration It was a movement from coast to coast, seen in the Twin Cities as the International Workers' Day rally drew hundreds to the Minnesota State Capitol, rallying for immigrant and workers' rights. "I'm just with the people, fighting for what's right," said Karen Schmidt, who attended the rally from Blaine, Minnesota. Some say new policies from the White House amount to attacks on organized labor and immigrants, making the May Day tradition of widespread demonstrations even more important. "I'm for labor. As a solution, maybe this is a time for a general strike," said Keith Christensen, from Minneapolis. But in a space of strong opinions, a group playing the bongos said keeping the peace was important. "We've had great reaction. People dance," said Micki Rasmussen, who leads the group from Bloomington, Minnesota. Crowds weren't only seen in Minnesota's capital city, but also over at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Attendees at the airport included Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Sara Nelson, the International President of the Association of Flight Attendants/CWA. "I'm just happy to be here," Nelson told WCCO before speaking at the Capitol rally after her day at MSP. "It's exciting to be in a place with such rich labor history. That needs to be repeated right now."
Daily Mail
30-04-2025
- Daily Mail
Flight attendant reveals why planes are always so cold
Passengers often find themselves scrambling for their jumper during flights as the temperature on the plane turns chilly. Airplane cabins can get notoriously cold, but according to flight attendants, there's a very good reason for it. Jay Robert, a senior international cabin crew member and the creator of A Fly Guy's Cabin Crew Lounge, recently shared the surprisingly complex reason behind cabin temperature - and why being cold in the air is actually a beneficial thing. Speaking to UniLad Tech in 2024, Robert explained: 'When the plane is at the gate, it's cooled using an external air conditioning system. 'Once in the air, the aircraft relies on its internal cooling system, powered by the engines.' While pilots are in charge of the main thermostat, flight attendants can make minor adjustments through their cabin control system - but a significant change requires a call to the cockpit. According to Taylor Garland, spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants, airplane cabins are divided into zones for temperature control. However, the system is an 'imperfect science,' as she added: 'If a zone is large and/or the temperature sensor is near a source of heat - just like if the thermostat at home is near a heating vent - then the system will think that the cabin is warmer than it is.' But this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as cool temperatures are beneficial to passengers' health, safety, and, surprisingly, scent. Robert recalled working on a massive aircraft that carried over 600 passengers, and one of things he had to 'regularly check' was that the temperature did not go above 73 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees Celsius). The reason for this, he revealed, is because passengers are more likely to faint if temperatures exceed 75°F (24°C). Colder air helps counteract the effects of the cabin's dry, pressurised environment, which can contribute to dehydration and dizziness. The third and final benefit of cool air on planes is a little less scientific yet perhaps the most essential during on a long flight: a pleasant-smelling cabin. According to Robert, warmer cabins 'smell funkier' as heat energises odour-causing molecules, meaning a rather unsavoury smell can build up quickly on a warm plane. Meanwhile, a flight attendant revealed she 'judges' passengers who order a popular brewed beverage onboard on a plane - as she blasted their selection as 'sketchy'. Leanna Coy, from New England, who works for an US-based airline, took to TikTok on 21 April to vent her frustrations at travellers who opt for the hot drink. Posting a video to her page, @leannacoy, the flight attendant took aim at passengers who prefer to order decaffeinated coffee while cruising through the skies. In an accompanying caption, she wrote: 'Adults ordering apple juice? Pop off. Margherita at 10am? Slay. Bloody Mary? Gross, but that's your preference. Decaf AIRPLANE coffee though?' In the clip, she admitted she came to a realisation that she 'judges' passengers who order decaf coffee, as 'ordering coffee on a plane is little bit sketchy.' Leanne stressed that she understood a weary flyer or a pilot's need for caffeinated drinks during their travels, as they would likely be tired and requiring an energy boost. But she added: 'You're telling me you genuinely enjoy the taste of that airplane coffee so much that you're willing to drink it - not out of the necessity for caffeine - just for the flavour itself?'
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Is America Pissed Off Enough at Trump and Musk for a General Strike?
It's mid-April in Missoula, Montana, and Sara Nelson is asking a packed room of 8,000 people to visualize the obscenity of corporate greed and oligarchic wealth in America. 'Income inequality today is worse than it was just before the Great Depression. So picture this…' said Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a 50,000-member union. 'If you stack hundred-dollar bills high enough to reach one of our flights at 35,000 feet—that's nearly seven miles in the air—it would only be enough 100 dollar bills to equal just three percent of Elon Musk's worth. That's after he took the hit from the Takedown Tesla action.' The crowd howled with laughter. But the ultimate point of Nelson's speech at the University of Montana, delivered during a stop on Senator Bernie Sanders's 'Fight Oligarchy' tour, wasn't simply to rip the richest man in the world—as easy and amusing as that can be. Rather, she drew the connection between Musk's attempted wreckage of the federal government and the critical role of labor solidarity in stopping him. More than that, she has a specific plan to accomplish this. 'Nothing, nothing, NOTHING can move without our labor, and it's time to exercise our power in a united working class,' she said. 'We need to get ready for a general strike.' Nelson's call for a general strike, a tactic associated more with European nations, was audacious. But as the awesome popularity of Sanders's tour has shown, a broad rage against the oligarchic class is stirring in America, and labor leaders see this as a time to bring workers all across the country, including red states, to thwart a new Gilded Age and to protect healthcare and retirement benefits. A general strike—where masses of people across the country, unionized or not, walk off the job—is risky in the United States, where workers are largely at-will and stand to lose their jobs for striking. But Nelson, whose push for such a work stoppage was critical to ending the 2019 government shutdown, thinks it's time for dramatic action. 'People fight when they have something to fight with, or they fight when there's nothing left, and they have to fight,' Nelson told me. 'We're in the middle of those two things … It's going to be terrifying to anyone in charge that there would be that kind of solidarity, breaking through all of the tactics that have kept people down for centuries.' There are at least two specific movements for a general strike (neither of which Nelson has endorsed or rejected). One is a grassroots effort to get three million people to sign general strike cards—so far, more than 336,000 have done so—and then raise the goal to eight million, after which organizers will create a slate of demands and prepare to strike on a specific, and for now undetermined, date. It's a steep challenge, and there will surely be a competing list of priorities among left-leaning groups, but 'where we are now, we need to withhold our labor for things to get better,' said one of the organizers, Eliza Blum, who worked on the successful Fight For $15 movement in California to raise the state's minimum wage. The second effort also bills itself as a general strike, but it threads a legal needle to avoid violating federal law. The Taft-Hartley Act bans 'secondary boycotts'—actions where one union strikes in support of another union. But United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain has a way of getting around it. He's calling for unions to follow UAW's lead in aligning their contracts to expire at midnight on April 30, 2028. That sets the scene for a massive, entirely legal strike on May Day, 2028. The American Federation of Teachers has already approved a resolution calling on their local unions to set their contracts to expire on April 30, 2028. 'There's been talk about a 'general strike' for as long as I've been alive. But that's all it has been: talk,' Fain wrote in a column for In These Times calling for the action. And what better way to show corporations and elected officials who really runs the show? 'The fact is: without workers, the world stops running,' Fain wrote. Union membership in the United States has been in steady decline since the late 1950s; less than 10 percent of American workers are unionized, a number that sinks to less than six percent when public-sector unions are taken out of the equation. But public support for unions is near a 60-year high, according to Gallup. Last year, the polling firm found that 70 percent of Americans approve of labor unions. In the past few years, the country has witnessed successful strikes by a wide range of unions, including those representing auto workers, dock workers, communications workers in the South and actors and writers in Hollywood. It would take that kind of broad base of support to make a national general strike work, experts say. That doesn't mean everyone would have to stop working in America for a day or a longer period of time; Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor Erica Chenoweth's theory is that it takes 3.5 percent of the population (or 11 million Americans) for a non-violent social movement to succeed. But it needs to include an economically and occupationally diverse group to send a singular message to the Trump administration that the country is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. 'I think it's important to look at the entire workforce and see what efforts could be made to demonstrate to the administration, more importantly to America, that people are not alone. There is a very large majority who don't want to lose their Social Security or Medicare, Medicaid or their democracy,' Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary, told me. 'The point would be not to try to intimidate the Trump regime. The point would be to let the vast majority of Americans know that they are part of the vast majority.' Mass demonstrations might serve as a national venting session for aggrieved Americans, and might even help mobilize people in a more organized way, advocates for a general strike say. But Trump is impervious to opposition (and in fact appears to delight in it), so protests don't change his behavior. The 'write your congressman' approach just isn't working. What will work, general strike planners argue, is an action where workers stand together and show the power they have. Unlike a labor stoppage at one company or in one industry, a general strike is broader, involving workers in multiple industries and across an entire community, region or country. The grievances could be broad as well, such as general economic inequality, or preservation of popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare. It's something we're used to seeing in Europe (laborers in both the public and private sectors went on strike in Belgium recently to protest government austerity measures), but not in the U.S. There are some good reasons for that, notes Lane Windham, associate director of Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. European workers have more job protections than their American counterparts; in France (where the 'Yellow Vests' protestors of 2018-19 succeeded in getting the government to scrap a fuel tax), the right to strike is in the constitution. In the U.S., most contracts have no-strike clauses, Windham said, and in an economic strike, companies can replace striking workers. Federal workers do not have the right to strike. And without a national healthcare system, American workers stand to lose health insurance along with their jobs if they strike. 'The U.S. system is more harsh than in some other countries. Workers can easily be fired, and there's no safety net. The risks of striking are very high,' said Stephanie Luce, professor of Labor Studies at the City University of New York's School of Labor and Urban Studies. A general strike is not 'off the table, but it's a developing muscle. It will take a little bit of work,' she said. America has had some notable general strikes in its history, demonstrating both the potential for unified action and the deadly response by authorities. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started in Martinsburg, W.V., and spread to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Buffalo, Windham said. People rallied in support in San Francisco and throughout the South. 'People weren't used to working for wages. They came from farms, and were not used to corporations,' she said. 'When strikes happened, entire communities got involved.' But they got beaten back, literally: The railroad company and elected officials sent in militias to quell the labor uprising, resulting in an estimated 1,000 arrests and 100 deaths. A 1919 Seattle general strike, primarily in support of shipyard workers and endorsed by 110 unions, paralyzed then port city for six days (though workers organized to deliver milk for children, pick up trash and serve 30,000 meals a day). A wave of general strikes in 1934 culminated with the creation of the National Labor Relations Act the following year. The last time American workers mounted a general strike, legislative retribution was swift. After 100,000 workers in Oakland joined in solidarity with 400 department store workers in 1946 as part of a series of post-war labor uprisings, Congress responded by passing the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act limiting union power. What would lead American workers to take the chance again on a national general strike? It comes down to the very real threat, Nelson said, of losing the very things unions built up, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and basic worker rights. A general strike could be a short, she added, and perhaps—as in 2019—the mere threat of a massive walkout could do the trick. 'The more we're talking about what we're willing to do, the less likely that an actual action would have to take place. The power of this is the idea and the notion that we can do this together,' she said. Even still, it's a big ask. 'What they are really asking for is for unions and their community allies to be working together on a coordinated level that is ahistorical,' said Eugene Carroll, a longtime labor educator and organizer and a Worker Institute Fellow at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But if 'there's continuing economic disruption on a big scale'—attacks on Social Security, erosion of workers' rights, more mass firings, persistent inflation—then that's 'going to allow this spark to expand,' he said. Reich used a similar analogy—and was also unsure of what will come of the smoldering fury across America. 'The tinder is there,' Reich told me. 'The material that will catch fire is certainly there. I can't tell you what specific form it will take. But I do have a feeling it will happen quite soon.'
