The eyes after years in the cabin: the dry eye from the air, the contact lenses on a 14 hour sector
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#1 JAL purser, nine years, and the eyesight threads are the requirements for the applicants (the glasses, the laser). The eyes after years are the other thing nobody writes, with the ears Daniel wrote, because the cabin's air does something to them that the optometrist sees and the crew feel at 3am.
The dry eye
The cabin humidity at 10 to 20 percent (the skin threads) dries the eyes on every sector and the contact lens wearers feel it first: the lenses that are fine at hour two and painful at hour ten, the eyes that are red at landing, the rewetting drops in every crew bag. The crew who wear glasses on duty (allowed at JAL on the aircraft, which the SIA threads say is not the case there) have the dry eye without the lens pain. The dry eye is cumulative and the optometrist told me the cabin crew have it a decade early.
The contact lenses on a 14 hour sector
The lenses that are not meant for 14 hours worn for 14 hours, the crew who sleep in the crew rest with them in (the thing the optometrist asked me not to do and I did for years), the infections the ones who do not change them get. The daily lenses for the long haul (fresh ones after the crew rest), the glasses in the bag for the rest, the drops hourly, the lens case in the galley: the senior crew's eye routine, which the junior crew do not have until the first infection.
The reading glasses at 40 arriving early
The presbyopia (the reading glasses age) arrives at 40 for everyone and the optometrist said the cabin crew come in at 37 and 38 complaining about the menu card and the tablet. The eye strain of the tablet in the dim cabin, the small print on the safety cards and the manifests, the galley light at 3am: the eyes are worked hard in the cabin and the reading glasses come early. The grooming standard at the premium carriers has a reading glasses policy for the over 40s and the JAL one is conservative frames.
What the optometrist said the cabin does
The dry air, the UV through the windows on the day flights at altitude (the sunglasses on the jumpseat by the window are not vanity), the screen in the dark, the sleep disruption that affects the eyes as it affects everything. And the thing the optometrist was clearest about: the crew who sleep in their lenses in the crew rest are the ones with the problems at 40, and the fix is the daily lenses and the glasses for the rest.
The senior crew's eye routine
Daily lenses on the long haul, changed after the crew rest. Glasses in the crew bag for the rest and the hotel. Drops hourly on the long sectors. Sunglasses on the day flights at the window. The annual eye test outside the AME's, because the AME tests the acuity and not the dryness. And the reading glasses accepted at 38 without the vanity that delays them.
For the year one crew
The daily lenses, the glasses in the bag, the drops in the galley, the sunglasses on the jumpseat, and the lenses out before the crew rest, every time. The eyes at 25 are the eyes at 40 if the routine is followed, and the optometrist will see the difference.
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#2 JAL, and the lenses out before the crew rest is the thing Keiko told me in year two and I did not do until year five and the infection was the lesson. The daily lenses on the long haul are the JAL senior crew's rule and Keiko has written it for the forum.
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#3 Lufthansa purser, and the eyes and the ears are the two senses the job takes slowly and both threads exist now. The sunglasses on the jumpseat by the window at altitude is the thing I did not know was not vanity. The optometrist outside the AME is the advice.
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#4 Emirates upper deck, and the contact lenses at hour ten of a 14 hour sector is the pain every Gulf crew member knows and the drops in the galley are the crew bag's most used item. The daily lenses changed after the rest is the thing I will do from the next flight.
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#5 SIA Chief, and the contacts on duty expected at SIA, as the thread says, makes Keiko's routine the SIA crew's routine by necessity: the daily lenses, the drops, the lenses out in the rest. The reading glasses at 38 in the conservative frames are the Chief's uniform addition this year.
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#6 Virgin, 14 years, the reading glasses at 39 that I resisted until 41, and the vanity that delays them is the thing Keiko names. The eyes, the ears, the back, the sleep, the skin: the body thread has five chapters now and the forum has written all of them.
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#7 Qantas, and the UV through the A380 upper deck windows on the Dallas day flights is the thing the Qantas eye tests show and the sunglasses on the jumpseat are the fix nobody takes. Keiko's optometrist and ours agree. The window seat at altitude is the sun.