Tried a search, but it timed out.
Are there any countries where smoking is still permitted on airline flights? I’m guessing one of the Stans, or someplace in Africa.
Well, sort of.
Smintair - offering daily service from Dusseldorf to Berlin, and nowhere else. Small problem - they haven’t got any planes, and Airbus keeps diverting their A380s to bigger (ie., more important) customers.
Actually, between Dusseldorf and Tokyo, according to your Wikipedia link. And I have to wonder how many smokers are there who want to fly that route?
Yeah, that was a typo. I was reading from another article and typing the cities sort of subconciously.
Apparently there are a lot of potential customers because they’re buying big honkin’ planes.
There’s a major area of Japanese businesses (Japantown?) in Dusseldorf, around Immermannstrasse, certainly the most important in Germany. It makes sense to have a direct flight to Japan, rather than having to fly from Frankfurt.
I’m pretty sure most airlines will still let you smoke on the wing, if you don’t mind the stiff breeze.
Anecdotally, I remember hearing that in first class on flights between Tokyo and New York a lot of big-shot businessmen get away with smoking. Maybe someone can confirm/refute that?
I can confirm that on flights I have been on from L.A. and Seattle to Tokyo no smoking occured.
A quick Google search hasn’t given me anything conclusive, and I don’t have a lot of time to look right now, but this pdf document suggests that ICAO contracting states (of which there are currently 190, btw) have resolved to ban smoking completely on flights as of July 1, 1996. There may be some states who haven’t formally banned smoking on their flights, but to be allowed to land in countries who have, they would have had to at least ban smoking on international/transborder flights.
There is no such restriction in private jets, AFAIK.
It wasn’t on Newark-Tokyo or Chicago-Tokyo when I flew those routes. The only tme I flew JFK-Tokyo, I was stuck in coach, but I am reasonably certain there was no smoking. And this was on JAL.
Last time I smoked on a flight was Moscow - London in 1997 I think.
97? That’s still surprisingly recent.
The airlines also love this. It really cuts down on the maintenance. Outflow valves used to get clogged up with tar, carpets, interior plastics and upholstery would become stained and smelly, burn marks/holes from cigs, etc. I am old enough to remember the bad old days, and good riddance. If you can’t hold out with a nicotine patch, maybe you should be driving your smelly car.
Recent enough that I was really suprised when I found out you could smoke on the flight. I was BSing with a Finn at the airport bar in Moscow and wanted to stay to get one last drag in before the flight when he alerted me that you could still smoke on that route.
Fortunately, there was a group of drunk and unruly Russian teenagers on the flight that raised so much hell that I don’t think anyone noticed the two drunk assholes smoking the entire flight. We were of course sitting in the back laughing like hyenas watching the poor flight attendant trying to keep them in line.
Actually I believe they’ve banned it now due to the other passengers complaining about the smokers clustering around the doors.
The last 10 years or so when it comes to Boeing 737’s, a couple middle eastern airlines are the only airlines that have interiors set up for smoking. The seats have ashtrays and the no smoking signs can be switched off. No others have any provisions to support smokers.
I think that’s what Shatner was really trying to do in that Twilight Zone episode.
When I finally quit smoking, it was getting hard to find an AIRPORT that you could smoke in, let alone a plane. Pittsburgh was always a good one for me. You could have a drink, meal, and a smoke in any airport restaurant or bar, but when I was there last month, they had banned smoking entirely.
That is something that, at least to me, has no rational basis. An airport is a pretty large complex. Surely there can be a small smoking lounge somewhere in there.
My wife flew on Kuwait Airways from Chicago to Amsterdam back in 1998 and you could smoke on the flight. She was coming out to visit me, and the Kuwait ticket was the cheapest flight. Since she smoked at the time, she sat in the smoking section, and she said it was awful. When she got on the plane the smallish “smoking section” in the back was mostly empty, and most of the people were up front with their families. Once the plane reached altitude, all the men piled back into the smoking section and it was basically a chain-smoking marathon for the 8 hour flight. The cabin was pretty thick with smoke.
Hee hee hee, Calgary has a smoking lounge right off the domestic flight gates. Seriously, you walk off and there’s a lounge overlooking the tarmac.