How Flying Seriously Messes With Your Mind
8th February 2020
Assuming, of course, that you survive the experience.
Physicist and television presenter Brian Cox and musician Ed Sheeran have both admitted they can get a bit over-emotional when watching movies on aircraft. A survey by Gatwick Airport in London found 15 percent of men and 6 percent of women said they were more likely to cry when watching a film on a flight than they would if seeing it at home.
Perhaps the prospect of sudden death has something to do with it.
The reduced air pressure on airline flights can reduce the amount of oxygen in passengers’ blood between 6 and 25 percent, a drop that in hospital would lead many doctors to administer supplementary oxygen. For healthy passengers, this shouldn’t pose many issues, although in the elderly and people with breathing difficulties, the impact can be higher.
For none of which, of course, the passengers have expressed informed consent. Interesting how airline passengers are treated in ways that under other circumstances would justify a lawsuit.