Loughborough University
Browse
SHMpaper_fnl.pdf (140.1 kB)

Taking care in the air: jet air travel and passenger health, a study of British Overseas Airways Corporation (1940-1974)

Download (140.1 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2012-06-11, 14:28 authored by Lucy Budd, Morag Bell, Adam WarrenAdam Warren
This paper explores an aspect of medical history that has been overlooked in existing academic studies of commercial air travel, and advances a new historiography of airline passenger health and commercial aviation medicine. The introduction of jet-powered passenger aircraft by British Overseas Airways Corporation (B.O.A.C.) in 1952 presented a new set of epidemiological, chronobiological, and physiological passenger health concerns. These resulted from the increased size, speed, range, and cruising altitude of commercial jet aircraft. Drawing on extensive archival research, this paper explores the nature of these ‘new’ aeromedical challenges. It places them within the context of much earlier concerns about healthy travel, including military interest in the influence of flight on the human body. Focusing on B.O.A.C., the paper examines the ways in which one major airline responded to the passenger health challenges jet air travel posed, and assesses the extent to which B.O.A.C.’s responses transformed practices of aviation medicine.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Citation

BUDD, L.C.S., BELL, M. and WARREN, A.P., 2012. Taking care in the air: jet air travel and passenger health, a study of British Overseas Airways Corporation (1940-1974). Social History of Medicine, 25 (2), pp. 446-461.

Publisher

© Oxford University Press

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publication date

2012

Notes

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Social History of Medicine, following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkr115

ISSN

0951-631X

eISSN

1477-4666

Language

  • en