Questions and Answers

Hi, I try to fly around as much as I can during the times that I have holidays, but my mom is quite concerned about the health issues of flying. Personally, I don’t care, since nothing can stop my aviation geekiness , but I would like to know so I can get my mom’s worries out of the way. Thanks in advance!

What kind of health concerns does she have?

Lucky and the OMAAT team fly around quite a bit, there are many people who travel constantly for work and then there’s cabin crews and pilots.

If she is worried about your health and you’re young and healthy then tell her not to worry. I have a friend who has been a flight attendant for 43 years and at 65 years old she is still working and very healthy.

Oh ok. Good, thank you so much. It really can get sort of annoying when her first answer whenever I propose a trip to her is, “But are you sure flying is healthy?”

There are several issues which can adversely affect the health of certain individuals. I do not want to go into great details, but I am sure you heard about the increased chance of getting deep vein thrombosis which can lead to life threatening pulmonary embolism (basically the blood-clot which was formed in the deep vein becomes detached, travels to the lung and can block pulmonary vessels). The result of pulmonary embolism can range from nothing to instant death (google it). There are several medical conditions affecting your blood clotting which would put that individual at a higher risk of getting thrombosis/embolism. Also, people with lung and/or heart diseases might not fare well in a somewhat “hypoxic” environment of a plane flying at 10,000 meters. I had 3 friends in their 20s who had the above issues (pulmonary embolism) after flying once on a “long” haul flight. One had embolism after a BNA-LAX flight (4.5 hrs). Which is nothing compared to what these guys (Lucky and his friends) do (fly) on a regular basis. But if you are still skeptical, that is fine (just please ask you doctor what he/she thinks next time you see him/her).