Commercial aircraft cabin altitude

It was a pleasure to read the review in JRSM ¹ of an aviation medicine topic based on fact rather than emotional opinion. However, when considering the aircraft cabin environment it is incorrect to state that the cabin pressure is standardized to an equivalent of 8000 feet.

The regulations^2,3 stipulate that the maximum cabin altitude should not exceed 8000 feet during normal operations, and, in fact, at usual cruising altitude the cabin altitude rarely exceeds 6000 or 7000 feet in a modern jet airliner.

Finally, the authors should have credited Boeing as well as Airbus with announcing a maximum design cabin altitude of 6000 feet, which they did for the new Boeing 787.