Air travel and cancer
Flying on a commercial airline is a safe way to travel and is unlikely to affect your risk of cancer.
Radiation
The Earth receives a lot of ‘cosmic radiation’ from space but our atmosphere shields us from most of this. The atmosphere thins the higher you get, so someone flying in an airline would receive more cosmic radiation than someone on the ground. Even so, a passenger would still get a very small amount of radiation.
Radiation can damage DNA, which could eventually lead to cancer. In theory, no level of radiation can be considered to be completely safe. But the low levels of radiation that a passenger would experience are very unlikely to seriously affect their cancer risk, even if they were a frequent flyer.
Pilots and air cabin crew
Pilots and air cabin crew spend much more time in the air and are exposed to much more radiation than passengers are. But even airline pilots are exposed to radiation levels well within safe limits.
However, some studies have suggested that pilots and air cabin crew may have a higher risk of skin cancer than other people. Female air cabin staff may have a slightly higher risk of breast cancer, but the evidence for this is inconsistent. There is also no evidence that these risks are due to radiation exposure.
Sun exposure is the main cause of skin cancers and pilots may spend more time in hotter climates than other people. Air travel may disrupt body clocks and alter hormone levels, which could explain the possible increased breast cancer risks in stewardesses. Alternatively, stewardesses may have no children, or have them at a later age than average, which are both risk factors for breast cancer.
We need larger studies to determine if air crews have higher risks of some cancers, and if these risks are caused by radiation. But few passengers will ever get similar radiation doses and don’t need to take any particular precautions.
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