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How Flying Seriously Messes With Your Mind and Body (bbc.com)
dryriver writes: BBC Future has an interesting piece about how traveling in an airliner does strange things to people's minds and bodies, such as far more people starting to cry while watching even mildly emotional movies on airplanes than what is normal, some passengers experiencing decreases in acuity of sight, taste and smell (airline meals are over-seasoned to compensate for this), unusual tiredness or desire to sleep, your skin drying out by up to 37% percent and possibly becoming itchy, and some people breaking wind far more often than they normally would. Here is an excerpt form the report: "There can be no doubt that aircraft cabins are peculiar places for humans to be. They are a weird environment where the air pressure is similar to that atop an 8,000ft-high (2.4km) mountain. The humidity is lower than in some of the world's driest deserts while the air pumped into the cabin is cooled as low as 10C (50F) to whisk away the excess heat generated by all the bodies and electronics onboard. The reduced air pressure on airline flights can reduce the amount of oxygen in passengers' blood between 6 and 25%, a drop that in hospital would lead many doctors to administer supplementary oxygen. There are some studies, however, that show even relatively mild levels of hypoxia (deficiency in oxygen) can alter our ability to think clearly. At oxygen levels equivalent to altitudes above 12,000ft (3.6km), healthy adults can start to show measurable changes in their memory, their ability to perform calculations and make decisions. This is why the aviation regulations insist that pilots must wear supplementary oxygen if the cabin air pressure is greater than 12,500ft. A study in 2007 showed that after about three hours at the altitudes found in airline cabins, people start to complain about feeling uncomfortable."
I've only flown on a 787 once, but it's a huge improvement over any other standard-class flight I've been on. The higher pressure is really noticeable - I got about 4 hours of work done, and slept soundly for much of the rest of the time. Oh, and it was the only flight I've been on (including in business) where the skin on the lower halves of my legs didn't dry out and remain itchy for a week afterwards.
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The Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 supposedly feature improvements in cabin air pressure, with pressurization to 6000 feet equivalent, as well as increases in humidity.
Unfortunately, they still aren't that common.
Not sure about the A350, but the 787's composite fuselage allows for higher humidity, too.
Water and aluminum equals corrosion, so aluminum airliners fly with extremely dry cabin air because the cold outside would cause condensation on the aluminum, leading to corrosion and planes falling apart much faster.
Which isn't a good thing.
But composites apparently aren't (as?) susceptible to water-caused corrosion (or degradation), and I bet they don't conduct heat was well so there's less condensation in the first place.
Higher humidity means less impact on the mostly-water meatbags inside the sardine can.
Years (Christ, decades!) ago I was an engineer at Boeing and we looked into some report that said something like "people experience nosebleeds on aircraft 840% more often" and we talked to doctors who traced it to low humidity in the cabins. We designed a humidifying system (corrosion wasn't a problem, but the duct work had some ordinary steel components that needed to either be replaced or they would rust quickly). The system design predicted a system weight of about 200 pounds, and management figured no one would want it so they killed the project there. They were probably right; American was ordering planes with a brushed aluminum finish because they didn't want the weight of the paint on the aircraft.