Biography

Farrol Kahn
Farrol Kahn
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Born and educated in South Africa, he spent most of his life living in London and Oxford before moving to Switzerland to write further books and articles.

After a career in journalism his first book, Curse of Icarus (Routledge 1990), which demonstrated the health risks of flying, led Sir David Weatherall, the Regius professor of Medicine at Oxford University, to suggest the establishment of non-profit Aviation-Health Institute (AHI) in Oxford. From 1996 to 2009, he was the director of AHI.

During this time three other books on aerospace medicine followed: Arrive in Better Shape (Harper Paperbacks 1996), Airwise (CW Daniel 1993) and Why Flying Endangers Your Health (Aurora 1992). During his tenure at the AHI, he organised Healthy Flying events at airports such as Heathrow, Dublin, Copenhagen and Malta as well as raising £2 million for Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) research by WHO. He invented flight socks to prevent DVT and has worked as an consultant for Airbus on health benefits for passengers.

He came to Switzerland in 2009 to write a biographical novel on Rilke. The 800-paged book took ten years to complete.

He has written 6 cultural/travel books on Switzerland: The Valais Canton, Crans Montana, Montreux Riviera, Lausanne, Geneva, Gstaad as well as Oxford and Riga in Latvia. He has written articles for the Financial Times, New York Times, Daily Telegraph, among others and appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

He has given interviews for TV and radio including the BBC-TV and CNN Business Travel (Richard Quest.)

Achievements

  1. Media. Over 400 articles and 40 television programmes were generated on the issue of health risks of flying. As a result, most airline websites have advice on healthy flying.
  2. Books. Four books on aerospace and aviation medicine: The Curse of Icarus (Routledge), Why Flying Endangers Your Health (Aurora), Arrive in Better Shape(HarperCollins) and Airwise (Random House). All are available on Amazon.com
  3. Global Awareness campaigns – over 70 worldwide: Governments – UK, House of Lords, EU, US (Dept. of Transport); Organisations – Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Heath Organisation (WHO); US Bar Association; Airports Council International (ACI) and National Business Aircraft Association (NBAA)
  4. Research. Instrumental in instigating UK and EU governments to provide £2.5 million for research into Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)
  5. Business consultancy.
    • Advising aviation clients on healthy flying, he organised Healthy Flying events at various airports: Heathrow was a world first in 2000; Copenhagen airport in 2006; Dublin in 2008 and Malta in 2008-2009.
    • Airbus 380. Recommended introduction of the quietest cabins in the sky for the world’s largest airliner which was launched in 2007.
    • Scholl. Invented concept of flight socks which generated sales of over £10 million in the first year.
  6. World expert. On air-related Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).

Current projects

Competition for hikers and bikers to visit the most Rilke places in Switzerland and post selfies on rilketour.ch