General surgery abroad: when you can fly home, and what to check first

The UK Civil Aviation Authority publishes guidance for doctors on flying after surgery. It is written for a cabin at altitude, where gas inside the body expands and there is less oxygen than on the ground. Its figures, by type of operation:

• Abdominal surgery. The Civil Aviation Authority advises avoiding air travel for 10 days after abdominal surgery. Many patients' bowels are slow to restart after an abdominal operation, and gas that cannot move expands at altitude, which puts them at risk of tearing suture lines, bleeding or, rarely, perforation.
• Laparoscopic (keyhole) operations. It advises avoiding flying for about 24 hours, because carbon dioxide left in the abdomen after the operation expands at altitude. That figure is about the gas, not about your recovery: your surgeon may advise a longer wait, so ask in writing which figure applies to you and why.
• Colonoscopy. After a colonoscopy in which a large amount of gas was used, it advises 24 hours.
• A plaster cast. It notes that most airlines restrict flying for 24 hours on flights under two hours and 48 hours on longer flights, because of swelling under the cast, and that a cast may have to be split if you must travel sooner.
• An injury in the 7 days before travel. After a fall or an accident of any kind, contact your airline about your fitness to fly. The authority says this matters most for chest injuries.
• Eye surgery in which gas is placed inside the eye. The wait depends on the gas: about two weeks for one type and six weeks for another, and about one week after other operations inside the eye.

These figures are general guidance written for doctors, not a clearance for you. The surgeon who operated decides when you, in particular, are fit to fly, and the airline applies its own rules as well. Neither is overridden by a flight you have already booked.

The figure that matters most on this page is the first one. Ten days after abdominal surgery is longer than many stays a clinic proposes, and the only honest way to plan is to put the authority's figure for your operation next to the number of nights the clinic proposes, before you book anything. If the two do not match, ask the surgeon in writing why the shorter stay is right for you, and what happens if you are discharged later than expected. No stay length is typical: it depends on the operation, on how you recover and on the surgeon's judgement.

Book flights you can change. A complication, a slow recovery or a discharge a day later than planned changes the date, and a ticket you cannot change is a pressure to fly before you should. Leave time on the way out too, for the tests the hospital wants done before the operation.

This page is about planned, non-emergency general surgery: operations on the abdominal wall, the digestive organs and the other tissues a general surgeon treats, decided in advance with a diagnosis in hand and time to arrange the trip.

Usually planned, so travel can be considered: a hernia that is known and not complicated, gallstones that cause symptoms, reflux with a hiatus hernia, haemorrhoids and other anal conditions, thyroid conditions, and planned bowel surgery. A known hernia can be planned; a hernia that suddenly becomes painful and cannot be pushed back is an emergency.

Treated where you are, never a reason to travel: acute appendicitis, peritonitis, a blocked bowel, a strangulated hernia, bleeding from the gut and an injury to the abdomen. Abdominal pain that builds up, with fever or vomiting, needs the nearest emergency department.

Flymedi pages linked to this specialty. Inguinal hernia repair: the repair of a weak point in the groin through which tissue pushes out, usually with a mesh, by open or keyhole surgery. Ask the surgeon in writing which of the flying figures above applies to your repair and why: the 10-day figure is for abdominal surgery, the 24-hour figure is for gas left after a keyhole operation. Mastectomy is part of breast cancer care and is decided by a cancer team. Kidney transplant and liver transplant depend on donor rules. Bone marrow transplant is a haematology treatment, not surgery.

Organ transplants are not booked like other operations. An organ comes from a donor, deceased or living; deceased-donor organs are allocated under the national rules of the country where the transplant happens, donation is unpaid, and no payment or journey changes a patient's place on a list. Flymedi does not facilitate any arrangement that involves paying a donor.

What this page does not cover: any operation done as an emergency; operations that belong to other specialties, such as plastic surgery abroad and bariatric surgery abroad; and procedures a surgeon may propose after examining you that have no page here. If that happens, the same checks apply: who operates, what the quote includes, how long you stay, and who follows you up at home. Nothing on this page replaces the consultation in which a surgeon examines you and confirms that the operation is the right one.

The NHS advises moving as soon as you can after an operation, because lying still for too long lets blood pool in the legs and raises the risk of a blood clot, and says you may be given compression stockings to help your circulation. The Civil Aviation Authority notes that patients use more oxygen after surgery, which matters in a cabin at altitude, and that gas in the body expands by about a third at cabin altitude.

Is it safe? No operation is free of risk, and travelling does not make one safer or more dangerous by itself. What changes is how quickly a problem can be treated and by whom, and that is what the questions on this page are for.

Flight length is the point of this section. The Civil Aviation Authority's 10 days after abdominal surgery apply wherever you are treated, and a long flight home matters more after abdominal surgery: more hours sitting still when clots are most likely, and further from the team that operated if something goes wrong. Destinations are grouped by flight length from the UK and Europe; each link goes to that country's general surgery page, which lists the clinics.

Short flights from the UK and Europe

Long flights