Humidifiers on Aircraft

[max autobrakes]

Are any other Airlines out there deactivating Humidifiers on flight decks like Qantas is presently doing on the B767 and the B744?

[PaulW]

BA did it 7 years ago. Replaced them with Ozone generators (ionisers). The humidifiers had a nasty habit of leaking on Pax heads, and had a high failure rate so were replaced.

[Dan Winterland]

Virgin 744s had them for the flight deck only. They were removed about 4 years ago - the given reason being they were causing corrosion on the contacts of the switches on the overhead panel.

[BHMvictim]

reason for deactivation is that the calcium in the water deposits itself in places where you dont want it.... like the switches in the fire handles. Could be a problem if you need to fire the bottles.

[NWT]

Have actually seen the corrosion on the back of the ovehead panel from a 747-400 due to condensation. The fire handle contacts were so badly corroded they didn't actually work......!

[BHMvictim]

One of the last steps of the EI to deacticate the humidifier, is to change the fire handles.