Lack of a/c on planes
 

I am wondering if it is just me but have others experienced extreme lack of A/C and air circulation on Elal flights?

I've flown about a dozen times in the past year and half, and only on Elal flights do they cut the A/C or only put it on fan. I've been in business class as well as economy in Elal and the story is always the same. Sometime during the flight they either only do fan or they shut off the A/C completely, leaving entire sections stifling hot.

Both a/c and air circulation take up significant sums of fuel. Perhaps this is a cost saving measure?

Whenever I am on a flight and the cabin is hot, I ask the inflight duty manager to adjust the temps and they always do. But then again, most of my flights these days are on United, and am not sure how the EL AL inflight duty manager would respond.

Eh? Wha? It's extremely, extremely cold outside. In addition, the pressure outside is significantly less than inside. The air coming from the engines is very hot. Both the temperature of the cabin and the airflow to the cabin are always maintained, it's just a matter of at what level. It doesn't cost them anything to move it up or down a few degrees.

I always ask as well, but moving it from off to fan or from 28c to 27c doesn't do much in a closed metal tube.

I fly business on El Al. I've been on hot flights and I've been on cold flights. As already said, there is cold outside air and hot engine air. It doesn't cost anything. The temps can be adjusted. Just ask. BUT, realize if most of the people are cold and you are hot--they are not going to turn it lower just for you!

Actually it does cost the airline money in terms of fuel. A few years back I was on a UA 772 flight (back then it was CO) b/w PEK and EWR. Sat in 1A in BF. The captain, who was Israeli (I could tell by his accent when he made the announcements), came out of the cockpit and hung out in the galley b/w the 2 BF cabins. I struck up a conversation with him and somehow we started discussing fuel burn and cabin air temps. He explained to me the mechanics behind a/c cabin air circulation, heating, and cooling, and how it increases fuel burn.

Perhaps it's a policy or standard practice at EL AL today not to adjust a cabin temp per customer request, but I can say that on all the airlines I flew and asked for the cabin temp to be adjusted (on UA, NZ, LH) they acceded to my request. Even back in the day when I was a GL with LY (when GL was the highest attainable status) whenever I would ask for cabin temp adjustment they would do it.

I'm pretty sure you misunderstood what the captain said. Bleed air does indeed "cost money" - but it's used for a lot of things other than cabin air temperature. The amount needed to move cabin temp a couple degrees doesn't even enter into the picture....

It is actually a common practice for airlines to ask flight/cabin crews to adjust cabin temps in order to save fuel, most notably by turning off one or more a/c units as this article points out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/st...trqa_ed3_.html

Next time if they don't want to turn on the A/C ask them to open the window instead. ;-)

a/c units on planes are not like units in your home or business. They do not have refrigerant and operate using the outside air.

Let's do a bit of critical thinking. It's -50 outside. Does one need to heat the cabin, or cool the cabin?

Yes, lets do some critical thinking. If an airliner could simply transfer the frigid air that is outside the cabin when at cruising altitude to cool the inside of the cabin, then aircraft would not need multiple sophisticated a/c systems.

Perhaps the below linked governmental paper entitled "A Review of Aircraft Cabin Conditioning for Operations in Australia" could shed some light as to just how complicated those systems are and how much fuel they consume.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a109044.pdf

Yawn. 1980 Australian military document? Really? If you want to play google-the-source, we can do that. I can see you skipped over quite a few documents which say exactly what I'm saying if you say, google for "airplane air conditioning." Maybe while you're at it, google "heat exchanger."

I really think we have different definitions of critical thinking.

I asked:

You replied:

Might I assume that was your answer to my question?

Nothing what you wrote above negates the fact that aircraft have a/c cooling packs and that air used in cabins is cooled despite the fact that temps outside the a/c at cruising speed are well below freezing. Hence your attempt at critical thinking in post 11 was dis-proven not only by logical reasoning, but also the 1980's article as well as the below more recent 2012 article which discusses cooling systems on aircraft, which, incidentally, is on the second page of a google search for "airplane air conditioning"

When the cold, sub-freezing air gets sucked into the engine at cruising speed, it is then compressed. This compressed air is hot and is transported via ducks to the a/c packs where it is then cooled to make for room/cabin temperature.

http://www.decodedscience.com/air-co...aircraft/10938

So, yes, it does appear we have different definitions of critical thinking. You seem to believe that cabin air does not need to be cooled because outside temps are well below freezing, but aviation mechanics and aircraft systems clearly differ with your "critical thinking".

Let's go back to your original claim, shall we? You stated:

Now you say as if victorious:

How is that in any way related to your original point, and where did I claim otherwise? You've wandered off the path.

I am trying to take you step-by-step through a path which will show you your error in thinking, since I don't think all at once is going to work here. But here we go.

1) There air outside is cold. The aircraft gets cold. It must be warmed up.
2) The air from the engines is hot. Very hot. It can be used to warm the cabin.
3) The air from the engines is actually TOO hot - usually over 200 degrees F. It needs to be mixed with outside air, or cooled down somehow. The manner of this is not relevant to this discussion (though they're usually not running an air conditioner, but I digress)
4) Your claim is that cooling the air down from 200+ to 73, instead of say, 75, causes additional fuel burn that is measurable and impacts El Al's bottom line.
5) I say that shows a lack of critical thinking.

Are we on the same page now?