The bizarre effects drinking on a plane can have on your body: From increased aggression, fits of laughter, risky sexual behaviour, nausea and dry skin – here’s why alcohol hits you harder while flying

A pre-flight tipple to celebrate the start of a holiday or to calm the fears of a nervous flyer is a common pre-boarding ritual for many travellers.

However, experts have urged people to be aware of the unexpected impact cruising at 30,000 feet can have on how alcohol interacts with the body.

Everyone who’s had a few too many knows the dangers of overindulging booze.

Emotional outbursts, dehydration, loss of balance and reduced inhibitions are just a few of the more famous signs of someone being deep in their cups.

But it could potentially increase your risk of dangerous deep vein thrombosis or even a seedy tryst in an airplane lavatory.

As a fresh study warns that having just two pre-flight beers lowers your oxygen absorption and increases heart rate MailOnline explains the other flight health risks booze can make worse. 

Drying out your skin

Cabin air is notoriously dry, and this can wreak havoc on the skin. 

It can lead to passengers developing dry and itchy skin that wrinkles more quickly.

Alcohol can compound this effect. Not only does a tipple dehydrate us generally, including the skin, it also causes a variety of other problems for your complexion.

This includes triggering flare-ups of a condition called rosacea which causes the skin in the face to flush red due to broken blood vessels. 

It can also cause water retention in the tissues of the face causing it to look bloated and puffy as a result. 

In the longer-term alcohol use can also lead to a decline in vitamin A reserves which can also impact skin health. 

Drying out your eyes

Much like your skin, dry cabin air also takes its toll on your eyes causing them to become red and irritated. 

Alcohol also has the same effect due to its diuretic properties that cause your body to lose moisture. 

Eye problems that can be exacerbated by a combination of flying and alcohol include bloodshot eyes as the alcohol causing blood vessels to expand and this can worsen irritation triggered by dry cabin air. 

Another is puffy eyes, which can be caused by alcohol triggering water retention in the face. 

Longer term alcohol consumption can also lead to a decline in vitamin A reserves which can also impact eye health.

Heightened emotions such as crying and laughing 

Many of us will know, or perhaps be, a teary drunk or one whose laughter volume multiplies by a factor of 10 after few rounds.

But cruising at an altitude of over 30,000ft can also contribute to your emotions running sky-high.

Part of this is undoubtedly tied into some of the reasons we travel in the first place.

A long-awaited holiday, successful business trips, reuniting with old friends or alternatively heartbreaking goodbyes can tie all sorts of emotions into a flight.

However, there are some medical reasons why flying, and a combination of alcohol, could contribute to emotional outbursts. 

The first is an issue known as hypoxia. This is the medical term for when there the body struggles to get enough oxygen. 

Hypoxia is known to occur at high altitudes as the air becomes thinner at higher altitudes.  

While planes are designed to compensate for this, being at a cruising height of 30,000 to 42,000ft is still roughly equivalent to standing on a 6,000ft mountain.

For context, Ben Nevis the UK’s tallest mountain is only 4,413 feet.

Experts say some people can suffer mild hypoxia as a result and some have linked this to emotional outbursts. 

Another factor could be tiredness. Plane passengers are no stranger to fatigue either from waking up at the crack of dawn to catch a flight, bouncing between time zones or from trying, and failing, to sleep on uncomfortable airplane seats. 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculate that going without sleep for 17 hours is equivalent to having a blood alcohol content of 0.05 per cent.

Experts equate this to roughly equivalent to three to four alcoholic drinks over two hours on an empty stomach. 

So, tiredness, hypoxia and alcohol and the emotional reasons for some journeys could combine to increase the chances of emotional outbursts. 

Gas and digestive problems

In what could be an unfortunate situation for your fellow passengers taking to skies is known to increase the rate of flatulence and other digestive issues.

Part of this is believed to be due to how the body reacts to rapid changes in air pressure as the gases that are naturally generated inside us burst free. 

Alcohol, which is a product of fermentation, can exacerbate this effect. 

This is partly due to alcoholic beverages typically being carbonated or high in sugar which can lead to increased gas production in the body.

For some people beer, which is made of crops like wheat and barley and contains gluten as a result, can also trigger digestive problems.

Other digestive issues such as constipation can also occur on long flights.

This is in part due to the disruption to normal diets people have while travelling and also due to travellers sitting down for long periods of time.

Moving around is one way to prevent constipation as it causes material to move through the digestive system more easily.

Staying sedentary for long periods, as many flight passengers do, does the opposite.

Getting drunk on or before a flight and passing out in your seat could exacerbate this problem as well as triggering dehydration, another cause of constipation. 

Anxiety attacks

Many people feel anxious about flying either due to a phobia or the reason for of their travel in the first place. 

While it can be tempting to resort to a bit of liquid courage to settle your pre-departure nerves this can be counterintuitive. 

Alcohol has been known to contribute to anxiety and panic attacks due to its numerous effects on the body.

Some of these, like dehydration, are relatively immediate and can cause people to suffer from an elevated heart rate and dizziness which can trigger an attack.

Others like booze’s effect on blood sugar and hormones are felt as we start to sober up and can contribute to feelings of anxiousness and even attacks in people who downed a few pre-flight drinks and awake to find the buzz has worn off.   

Increased risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT)

Deep vein thrombosis or DVT is perhaps the most famous and feared air travel related health problem.

DVT relates to dangerous blood clots that develop in the leg related to being sedentary for long periods of time and can be fatal. 

Travelling for just three hours on a flight is enough to increase your risk of DVT and partly while experts encourage people to get up and move a little for every hour they sit on a plane. 

Alcohol is also known to increase your risk of DVT. It does this in two ways, the first being dehydration which increases the risk of blood clots forming.

The second is that getting drunk can disrupt a person getting up to reduce their risk of DVT either by simply forgetting or by passing out in a stupor. 

Risky sexual behaviour 

Joining the ‘Mile High’ club isn’t just part of a sexual escapades bucket list.

Multiple people have reported feeling sexually aroused by travelling on an airplane and scientists aren’t sure why.

But they do have theories which aren’t, for obvious reasons, testable.

One is a very simple idea of biological stimulation that the vibration of the engines through the seat, and consequentially the genitals, also gets people’s ‘engines’ revving.

Another biological explanation is that hypoxia, the lowering of oxygen the body receives at high altitudes, lowers inhibitions.

A similar explanation pins a sky-high rise in sexual arousal to the feelings of tiredness we typically experience on a plane.

Experts highlight how most sex occurs when people are tired and getting ready to sleep, and increased arousal on flights is simply our bodies responding to this fact.

Other reasons are less biological and more social. One is that going away on a trip can be exciting and the break from routine awakens various desires for pleasure, including sex.

Another is that we generally aren’t trapped in confined environment with a bunch of strangers, and like a club or bar, this naturally increases the odds of meeting a potential sexual partner for a brief liaison.

Finally, there is boredom, hooking up with a stranger or lover presents another way to pass the time.

Another, perhaps more likely possibility, is that no one single factor is to blame, and one or a combination may trigger these feelings in different people. 

It should come as no surprise that alcohol can stoke the flames of these amorous encounters. 

Booze famous lowers inhibitions, and people can commit to various interactions that they would never dream of if they hadn’t had one wine or in some cases several.

The health risks of casual sexual encounters are the same both at sea level and 42,000ft.

STIs and unplanned pregnancies are risks for any erotic liaison but adding alcohol to the mix can heighten these chances further. For example, drunken lovers can forget or improperly use condoms. 

Aggressive acts

In the polar opposite to the ‘Mile High Club’ some flights can end up looking more like ‘Fight Club’. 

Numerous examples exist of so-called ‘air rage’ where passengers become unusually aggressive while flying, sometimes leading to open violence towards fellow travellers or air crew. 

Experts have pointed to a number of potential triggers as to why.

Firstly, is that travel can be stressful. Delays, early wakeups, getting to the airport, traveling with children, rowing with a family member or sitting next to a passenger who considers personal hygiene an optional concept can, sometimes, instil feelings of rage.

For some people, one of these, or a combination, can be the final straw and lead to punch-ups that get a flight grounded.

Alcohol consumption isn’t going to help these feelings and booze’s lowering of inhibitions, and consideration of consequences, can make violence more likely to happen. 

Nausea and vomiting 

Travel sickness is a common complaint on planes, the up and down motion of take-off, landing and turbulence combined with the dry air can make people feel nauseous. 

Alcohol can also make people feel nauseous. This is due to alcohol irritating the lining of the stomach leading to an increase of acid that can cause feelings of nausea. 

Unsurprisingly, a combination of both is unlikely to make for a happy landing. 

Injuries  

Being drunk can increase your risk of falling over due to alcohol’s impact on our coordination. 

Planes, which can experience turbulence as well as having confined aisles with potential tripping hazards can provide an environment for accidents.

UN backed data suggests there have been 29 accidents in the UK on aircraft between 2013 and 2023, the majority of which (9) related to landing.