From a small office outside London, aviation activist Farroll Kahn is calling for airlines to be more open about radiation and flying. That, I think, is an unqualified statement. Kahn's views have brought him in direct conflict with British Airways, which says the studies so far are too small to be meaningful. European airlines are taking radiation more seriously than their U.S. counterparts. Lufthansa German Airlines is studying 25,000 of its pilots and flight attendants looking for increased cancer rates.
European airlines plan to pool their data.
On May 13, the European Union will put rules into effect designed to protect European pilots and flight attendants from radiation. But radiation exposure is likely to increase as new planes fly higher and on longer routes. The question really is what the airlines owe frequent fliers in terms of notifying them of the risk. There are passengers now who spend more time in the air than some flight crews. More about that in our next report.