Originally Posted by zkzkz

Generally I agree that planes are too hot on long-haul flights. Apparently there's an urban legend going around flight attendants that raising the temperature will put people to sleep when of course it's just the opposite. On BA a previous poster went on such a crusade he got BA to issue an official policy but I'm sure that got forgotten pretty quickly.

However I did one thing that really opened my eyes at one point. I started bringing on board a small digital thermometer that I could leave on the table a convenient ledge (not so much on BA where there's no convenient storage even in CW but that's another story...) and keep an eye on all the time. What I found is that my internal thermometer is nowhere near as precise as I believed.

Some times when I was sweating and hot the thermometer stubbornly showed 21-22 which in the dry air on board was usually what I was hoping for. Other times I was chilly and found the temperature was actually in the same range! Usually if I asked for the temperature to be lowered and was feeling grumpy that it hadn't changed the thermometer showed it had in fact dropped significantly.

Interestingly having an objective measure to look at actually made me more comfortable. I found I was sweating and overheating less and my anxiousness over the discomfort was much reduced.

Oh, another thing -- if you drink on board that'll totally throw your body temp out of wack.