Flying from Atlanta to Paris in coach class, I noticed that the cabin became warm and the air became stuffy and smelled like bad breath. It appeared that after the dinner service and the lights were dimmed the air was turned off. Once the breakfast service began the air had been turned back on. This was bearable because this was an evening flight.

Flying from Paris to Atlanta in coach class, I had the worse possible flight imaginable. After the dinner service the air was turned off. This time it became unbearable because we were traveling during the daytime and the cabin became so hot my friends and I had sweat pouring down our backs. Again people fell asleep after a rich meal with wine so the cabin smelled very badly of bad breath. Also there were infants on the flight and combined with the bad breath was the smell of dirty diapers. I am always tolerant of screaming babies on a flight but having the air off made my tolerance near zero. To make matters worse the elderly man sitting next to me was reading an article on "gastric leakage" ... the poor fellow had serious health problems ... was passing gas every minute ... and the lack of air circulation made it very noticeable. It may have been uncomfortable for me ... but I felt really sorry for him because his condition was uncontrollable but the lack of air circulation didn't allow it to be discrete for him. Why the air was off ... I just do not understand ...

Anyway to confirm there wasn't an issue with the air conditioning: as soon as the breakfast service began the air came back on. This was very irritating because it really gave my body what is was missing: fresh air. It also confirmed to me that the air conditioning was intentionally turned off.

Has anyone else experieneced an airline turning off the air during a long flight? The longest flights I have taken in the past were 6.5 hours on either United or American and never experienced this. It made for an excessively uncomfortable flight.