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Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

I declare that I am president of the CO Research Trust and a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. The Minister has already referred to our report. I am also one of those people who responds when there is a call for a doctor on a flight, and some of my experiences lead to my support for Amendment 36 —in particular, two aspects of it.

I shall deal with my Amendment 14 first. It aims to address potentially toxic dangers sneaking into the air that we breathe, as has already been mentioned. We must have an unconditional duty to protect human life. The silent threat has mostly been ignored; that is the risk of a plane’s cabin air containing contamination by carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. Carbon monoxide is colourless and has no smell, yet it is highly and rapidly toxic.

In much of the commercial fleet, pressurised air for the cabin and other parts of the plane must be kept frost-free, and that air comes directly from the engine compressors. It is called bleed air. When engine seals are broken or even have a micro-crack, synthetic oils and hydraulic fluid leak into this air flow. When subject to extreme temperatures, the fluids become neurotoxins, which are then inhaled, and that constitutes a cabin fume event. The neurological and respiratory symptoms are often short-lived and fade, but they can be far-reaching. They include things such as dizziness, headache, muzzy thinking and even shortness of breath and nausea—but, very occasionally, it may lead on to much more serious issues. Carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin, which it does much more quickly than oxygen, so in effect it suffocates our vital organs.

Even at low levels of exposure, passengers can feel unwell, but for the pilots in charge of the plane, hypoxia is potentially a threat to aviation safety, nationally and internationally. Filters exist, such as the HEPA filters, which can block around 99.97% particles, including viruses, but they are useless against gases, which just flow through them.

In 2007, the Committee on Toxicity examined several reports on cabin air sampling on a selection of normal flights, showing very low levels of contaminants. It concluded that cabin air quality globally conforms with standards. However, it stated that

“uncertainties remain, and a toxic mechanism for symptoms cannot confidently be ruled out”.

A 2017 study by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency pointed out that

“there is no contaminant-free indoor environment. The aircraft cabin is no exception. However, due to the exceptional high air exchange rates in aircraft, the cabin air has been proven to be less polluted compared to normal indoor environments”.

So far, so good. The 2018 guidance on cabin fumes from the International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations states:

“When a fume event occurs, cabin air contamination can cause short-term physical effects which may compromise flight safety. Sufficient scientific concern exists requiring more studies in order to determine any short and long-term effects of fume exposures”.

It is worth noting that the Civil Aviation Authority does not officially recognise aerotoxic syndrome, but Unite the Union and other unions are pursuing legal action over airlines’ duty of care and campaigners have called for an independent inquiry. Fume events are indeed rare, affecting only about one in 10,000 flights. Newer aircraft designs, such as the Boeing 787, utilise bleed-free technology, which draws air directly from outside rather than through the engine turbines. However, these planes represent only around 1,175 planes of the approximate 30,000 commercial aircraft in service. Most aircraft pre-date or did not incorporate that design.

The reality of our skies is interesting. Heathrow registers about 1,300 flights a day and Gatwick over 700—let us round that to around 2,000 flights a day. Mathematically, if one fume event occurs every 10,000 flights, the risk is about one a week over London, ranging from very minor to potentially serious. Currently, we rely on the human sense of smell to detect a fume event, and crew report the typical smell of dirty socks or burnt oil. However, the human nose cannot detect carbon monoxide, which is what caused the tragic crash of the Piper Malibu that killed Emiliano Sala.

In 2025, the CAA mandated that certain small piston engine light aircraft carrying passengers must monitor carbon monoxide. This leads to my amendment. If monitoring is vital for the protection of the users of small light tourism aircraft, on what grounds do we fail to offer the same protection, and de facto guarantee of safety, to hundreds of passengers confined in a commercial airliner? The technology already exists. Airbus is collaborating with the Fraunhofer Society to develop mass spectrometry systems capable of pinpointing the source of these pollutants with extreme precision. Our legislation should mandate every air transport service provider to install, maintain and operate continuous active monitoring systems for carbon monoxide, in particular, and hydrocarbons in the cockpit and passenger cabins.

Notably—I believe this is directly relevant—the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, gave the view that

“the power in section 61A(7) of the Civil Aviation Act 1982, read with section 61A(1), is inappropriate because its effect is to give the Government unconstrained power to decide which operational and safety aviation rules will be delegated to the CAA and

consequently made without Parliamentary process; and to ensure Parliament is properly able to scrutinise the scope of delegation of rulemaking to the CAA: the power … should be amended to make clear the principles underlying the exceptions to delegated rulemaking; and that power should be subject to affirmative procedure”.

I hope that the Government will amend the Bill accordingly. Otherwise, we will have to bring this back on Report.

Very briefly on Amendment 36, there is a risk of deep vein thrombosis in passengers. It can result in a fatal pulmonary embolism. It may well often be linked not only to the passenger’s own propensity to have a blood clot but to whether they are in an inappropriate seat to meet their medical needs and the seat pitch is inappropriate, particularly on very long-haul flights. I have had to look after people on the floor of an aircraft, sometimes for many hours. It is extremely difficult to hear what is going on through a stethoscope, because the engine noise is so great that you cannot hear properly, and trying to take somebody’s blood pressure on the floor of a crowded aircraft is not easy.

The thing that concerns me even more than that is the provision of lavatories. I have had an incident on a long-haul flight of two young people with really catastrophic and probably infectious gastroenteritis, which meant creating a public health measure to seal off one toilet for only them to use and making up rehydration fluids to keep giving them all the way back to Heathrow. It meant that there were not many toilets for other passengers, but I certainly did not want other passengers to use the toilets that these two were using. One problem is that the lavatories in many planes are so small that if anyone needs assistance with toileting, particularly if they have a bowel problem of any sort, including a stoma, it is extremely difficult to be in that toilet cabinet to assist them. Amendment 36 is particularly important.