Temperature on night flights
Join Date: Jul 2002
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Two friends of mine just flew to Australia and back, for a one day meeting - nightmare! They said that QUANTAS turned the cabin temp down, at "night", and then issued blankets. I am guessing that this may an effort to get people feeling that they are in bed, with bedding, and may be conducive to encouraging sleep. It seemed to work for them
Join Date: May 2009
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Often where I work the cabin crew will turn the temp up throughout the whole aircraft in an effort to heat up the galleys where they have to spend the night, sitting by a cold door. During the day they dont seem to do it probably because of the body low during the early hours. We also issue duvets in business and it is impossible to sleep under these when it is so warm. If we notice them doing this we just start to crank down the temp from the cockpit to try and keep it 24 or under, it then usually goes up again so we just keep turning it down until their control would be in the max heating setting but our control is the master and they can only go 4 degrees either way (I think) maybe 2 degrees either way from what we have set. Yeah would be easier to just say leave it at 24 to them you may think but unfortunately not the case most of the time where I work. Also gives us something to do :-)
Join Date: May 2007
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It seems to me that there should be more passenger feedback to airlines about this. It's one of my pet hates!!
Many of the colleagues that I fly with seem to imagine that passengers like temps of approx 25c on long overnight flights. As some people have mentioned, some cabin crew complain of being cold at night and so some pilots will increase the temp to please them, even though there have been no complaints from pax.
. This is much too high for me, expecially with the people the front having duvets and the ones in back, blankets. There is no way I could sleep in that kind of temperature.
As a generalisation, it does seem that central european customers prefer higher temperatures to those of American / British ones. I personally select a cool temperature of approx 21/22c on night flights as, as mentioned previously, you can always wrap yourself in your blanket if you're cold, but if you're hot, you're stuffed.
With only 3 temp zones though, I do appreciate that it's impossible to please everyone. Cooler rather than warmer does however seem to be the concensus. Let's hope more crew get the message soon! And please... do mention to cabin crew if you're not comfortable.
SS
Many of the colleagues that I fly with seem to imagine that passengers like temps of approx 25c on long overnight flights. As some people have mentioned, some cabin crew complain of being cold at night and so some pilots will increase the temp to please them, even though there have been no complaints from pax.
. This is much too high for me, expecially with the people the front having duvets and the ones in back, blankets. There is no way I could sleep in that kind of temperature.As a generalisation, it does seem that central european customers prefer higher temperatures to those of American / British ones. I personally select a cool temperature of approx 21/22c on night flights as, as mentioned previously, you can always wrap yourself in your blanket if you're cold, but if you're hot, you're stuffed.
With only 3 temp zones though, I do appreciate that it's impossible to please everyone. Cooler rather than warmer does however seem to be the concensus. Let's hope more crew get the message soon! And please... do mention to cabin crew if you're not comfortable.
SS
Join Date: Oct 2006
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Mocamps, good subject & a never ending nightmare for both pax and the crew trying to get everybody comfy.
A few things to add to the good points already made by Bealzebub and Lancelot37.
I fly as Chief Wagon Dragon on the B747, the B777 and the A330, and on all 3 Iīm the one who sets the temperature. Not the word "set" rather than "control".
From experience, I know what temp pax will generally find most comfy on various routes, so try to achieve that for them by setting that particular temperature in all the zones. So youīd think that in a hight tech environment like an airplane that would be a simple thing, right? Well it isnīt!
Say I set the temp for the entire cabin to 22C. Wait a while to let it do its thing and then walk from the front to the back to check.
Uniform temp no way! There will be hot spikes and seat rows that are icy cold traps. The hot spikes and cold traps will in no way at all relate to the heating system zone divisions so I will have no chance in hell to even things out. If I try to make the hot zones cooler, the pax in the cold zones will start to chatter their teeth, and the other way around. Itīs an all-flight balancing act, fine tuning it continuously with the elusive goal of achieving some uniform level of pax comfort.
Itīs a no win situation for everybody, and actually worse on the newer type aircraft than it is on the 747.
*******************
As for hiking up the temps for CC sitting by the doors; thatīs a new one.
In our mob, we only sit by the doors at night on the Airbus, and we have separate door area heaters to keep the arctic freeze away. On the other types, we either sit in the galleys and put our uniform sweaters on, or are in our bunks which again are separately heated.
The only time temps might get adjusted for CC comfort is during the hot meal service, when they are physically exerting themselves and anything above say 22C will make them sweat like draft horses in the aisles.
When traveling as a pax myself, I go for layered clothing from thin T to fleece sweater and carry an extra blanket and warm socks just in case.
Cabin heating is definitely the orphan child of aircraft design and its poor results are frustrating to you pax and us crew alike.
We want to make you comfy, but it is an uphill struggle.
A few things to add to the good points already made by Bealzebub and Lancelot37.
I fly as Chief Wagon Dragon on the B747, the B777 and the A330, and on all 3 Iīm the one who sets the temperature. Not the word "set" rather than "control".
From experience, I know what temp pax will generally find most comfy on various routes, so try to achieve that for them by setting that particular temperature in all the zones. So youīd think that in a hight tech environment like an airplane that would be a simple thing, right? Well it isnīt!
Say I set the temp for the entire cabin to 22C. Wait a while to let it do its thing and then walk from the front to the back to check.
Uniform temp no way! There will be hot spikes and seat rows that are icy cold traps. The hot spikes and cold traps will in no way at all relate to the heating system zone divisions so I will have no chance in hell to even things out. If I try to make the hot zones cooler, the pax in the cold zones will start to chatter their teeth, and the other way around. Itīs an all-flight balancing act, fine tuning it continuously with the elusive goal of achieving some uniform level of pax comfort.
Itīs a no win situation for everybody, and actually worse on the newer type aircraft than it is on the 747.
*******************
As for hiking up the temps for CC sitting by the doors; thatīs a new one.
In our mob, we only sit by the doors at night on the Airbus, and we have separate door area heaters to keep the arctic freeze away. On the other types, we either sit in the galleys and put our uniform sweaters on, or are in our bunks which again are separately heated.
The only time temps might get adjusted for CC comfort is during the hot meal service, when they are physically exerting themselves and anything above say 22C will make them sweat like draft horses in the aisles.
When traveling as a pax myself, I go for layered clothing from thin T to fleece sweater and carry an extra blanket and warm socks just in case.
Cabin heating is definitely the orphan child of aircraft design and its poor results are frustrating to you pax and us crew alike.
We want to make you comfy, but it is an uphill struggle.
