Ban Smoking on Airplanes?

Doctor and lawyer Lee S. Glass not long ago discussed this controversial topic in an article in Newsweek.

He reported: “When I spoke to a maintenance supervisor about smoking, I was told that it is quite costly for airlines. All those pounds of tobacco that change into ounces of ash don’t just disappear. After depositing a quantity of their carcinogens into each smoker’s lungs, they go out through the ventilation system, causing the mechanical equivalent of atherosclerosis in the process. That smoke gums up metal tubing just as it gums up the smokers’ arteries, and plenty has to be spent to restore the systems to good health.” Then why do airlines tolerate this needless expense, when banning smoking would save them much time and money? “The reason airlines tolerate the cost,” Glass declares, “is that the revenues generated by ticket sales to smokers exceed the amount that would be saved by banning smoking.”

Glass does not buy this argument. He reasons that in the long run, the small losses would be regained by the support given by nonsmokers and “every antismoking organization from Savannah to San Francisco.” Eventually, airlines “would have the smokers, who would not be smoking, because there would not be smoking seats available. They would have significantly decreased maintenance costs because their ventilators would be free from smoke residues. They would have taken a significant step toward improving national health and might have indirectly helped a few folks stop smoking.”