Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that airlines monitor the quality of cabin air.

Currently there is no evidence to suggest that continuous monitoring of aircraft cabin air would be worthwhile. The Government concluded in 2014, after a research programme on cabin air quality lasting for several years, that an international approach to any further research into the issue would be most appropriate. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has launched a programme of research into this issue in 2015.

In terms of monitoring individual events, the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Mandatory Occurrence Reporting Scheme (CAP382) ensures that an event that is considered by crew to be a “safety-related event which endangers or which, if not corrected or addressed, could endanger an aircraft, its occupants or any other person” is reported and investigated.