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Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let peop
by camillomiller 4y ago
Smoking on planes is absolutely something I can't wrap my head around in any possible way. How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bruce511 4y agoIt's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. Today I know of people who can't fly at all (because they can't stop smoking long enough.) even short flights of a couple hours are out of reach. (I was once on a 2 hour flight that took 6 hours for reasons, and some of the passengers fairly sprinted in the destination airport to get to a smoking area at 1am) So banning smoking when air travel was in its infancy would have killed it.
- htag 4y agoI have heard of people using nicotine gum, patch, or lozenge for situations like this.
- noduerme 4y agoYou can vape up your sleeve on a plane, but snus is the best way.
- gambiting 4y agoSnus isn't actually legal in a lot of places. As in - it's legal to have, but you can't buy it anywhere(most of EU and UK I believe).
- noduerme 4y agoit's quite a shame, because it's much cleaner and less dangerous than other ways of taking up nicotine.
- kzrdude 4y agoI agree, but also know what a Swedish school looks like, with such pouches stuck in various places, ceiling etc.
- dageshi 4y agoMy uk school had chewing gum in those places rather than nic pouches. The nic pouches are probably a LOT easier to cleanup than chewing gum.
- kadoban 4y agoPretty much only better than actually smoking, right?
- swores 4y agoYou can definitely buy pouches of tobacco to be used like snus in the UK (and I'm almost certain that was the case before Brexit, too). Unless "snus" has some specific definition that's illegal and the UK sells an alternative? Not sure, last time I tried snus was in Finland over a decade ago.
- gambiting 4y agoActual snus(powdered tabbaco sold and advertised as a product you put up your nose) isn't legal for sale in the UK: https://www.buynicotinepouches.co.uk/blogs/news/buying-snus-in-the-uk https://www.buynicotinepouches.co.uk/blogs/news/buying-snus-...
- mathieuh 4y agoHow is snus different from snuff? Cursory google seems to suggest you can buy snuff in the UK, which is also powdered tobacco that you put up your nose
- vwcx 4y agoIn the US, the major airlines prohibit use of e-cigarettes onboard. Do not vape on a commercial airliner.
- edgyquant 4y agoYou still can get away with it fairly easy. I quit this last year but when on flights I often would go into the bathroom and just hold the vape until it was gone. Then again I wasn’t one of those that blew room filling clouds
- fknorangesite 4y agoImagine risking a federal offense for a fuckin' vape.
- masklinn 4y ago> It's hard to imagine flying passengers as being a "startup", but it really only dates from around the 60s. It’s more than 30 years older. The first commercial airline opened around the start of WW1, and most major airlines (western at least) were founded in the 20s. The 60s is the effective start of the jet age.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoI don't disagree but prior to ww2's investment into R&D, infrastructure and labor force the economics of the industry were fundamentally different. The 1950s and early 1960s were to airlines what the 1990s were for computing.
- edgyquant 4y agoI also wonder how much WW2 forcing people into planes helped to kill some of the fear of it.
- sidewndr46 4y agoGo read about Pan Am in the 1920s and 1930s & you will think differently. They were busy building global transportation routes with whatever technology they could get their hands on.
- Stratoscope 4y agoThere's a really good docudrama on Amazon, Across the Pacific, that covers the early days of Pan Am: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0888MFZR2/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0888MFZR2/ (Using a smile link while I still can... Change it to www if it doesn't work in the future.)
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoCan't they get their 'fix' by applying a nicotine patch to their neck, or something?
- Ancapistani 4y agoI'm actually not aware of any studies that separate nasal and oral snuff usage that show that nasal snuff is correlated with cancers. I mean... intuitively, it seems like it should be, as the membranes there aren't substantially different - but it's odd that it's not been studied in particular.
- wkat4242 4y agoWhen air travel was in its infancy, banning smoking was just not something anyone would have even thought about. It was everywhere.
- junofan 4y agoDunno, but can’t imagine flying in China without a cig & beer near the gate.
- Keyframe 4y agoAnd buses!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TylerE 4y agoWell, in the early days of aviation lung cancer was, erm, pretty far down the list of hazards.
- bigDinosaur 4y agoCommercial aviation in the 60's was quite safe. Of course there were plenty of issues but the truly dangerous era was the preceding decades. The 747 dates from the very late 60's for example and that's an extremely safe plane. Conversely the 50's was a much scarier decade as commercial jet engines were in a fairly experimental decade.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoI believe in the 50s, commercial flights were propeller planes.
- dredmorbius 4y agoThe first commercial jet airliner, the de Havilland Comet, debuted in 1952, though it was retired shortly after due to mulltiple airframe losses due to structural fatigue. The Boeing 707 entered service in 1957, and is probably most associated with the start of the jet age. Most commercial flights were likely propeller-driven aircraft through the 1950s, but some jet travel had begun by the end of the decade. Edit: I've spent some time trying to find stats on flights / passenger miles by aircraft type for the 1950s & 1960s without luck. That'd be an interesting add to this thread if anyone has the information. I do find total passenger and freight data here: <https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter5/air-transport/world-air-travel-freight/ https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter5/air-transpo...> As of 1960, both categories were effectively nil. Passenger travel hit 1,000 billion passenger-km around 1980, the pre-2020 peak was about 8,500 billion passenger-km. Data based on IATA.
- TylerE 4y agoThe 60s is hardly the birth of passenger aviation. Just among currently operating airlines… KLM 1919, Qantas 1920 Aeroflot (and several other European flag carriers) 1923, Delta 1925
- jhoechtl 4y agoSeems you never were on a smoking flight. Planes have excellent air conditions. It was not like the whole plane up in smoke. You could smell it a little on a non smoking seat but it was quite mild.
- sen 4y agoHard disagree. I flew lots in the 80s and you could be halfway back in the non-smoking section and still smell it constantly. They had curtains separating the smoking/non-smoking sections but so many people went back/forth that their body movement would “drag” the smoke back down the aisle with them as they walked. Then on top of that the smokers going back to the bathroom would make sure they’d taken a huge puff before heading back, breathing out along the way, because heaven forbid they go a few minutes without a lungful.
- bombolo 4y agoSmoker's people sense of smell is severely compromised. They have no clue how strong the smell is.
- ornornor 4y agoI suspect they also don’t really want to know how strong and obnoxious the smell is to the rest of us.
- eyelidlessness 4y agoOnly speaking for myself as a smoker: I can smell it very prominently indoors without powerful ventilation. I don’t like it for me and don’t want to inflict it on others. I either steer clear of people outdoors, or put it out if they’re going to be nearby. The only exception is if they want to interact with me individually while I’m smoking, then I stand as far away as I can for the interaction they invited.
- ornornor 4y ago
- jacobsenscott 4y agoThe navy didn't ban smoking on subs until 2010. That must have been something.
- csomar 4y agoBut subs get deployed for 6 months at a time. Unless they banned smokers from getting into subs??
- chongli 4y agoYou don't have to ban smokers to ban smoking on a sub. Smokers don't have to smoke, they merely choose to do so.
- csomar 4y agoI think this is bad idea. Maybe have a special room for smoking? > Smokers don't have to smoke, they merely choose to do so. Some people are legitimately addicted. I know for a fact that I am not (I can go for a month without smoking and I won't go crazy) but removing smoking or nicotine will be a major quality of life downgrade for me.
- romwell 4y ago>Some people are legitimately addicted. And some people aren't fit to serve on submarines.
- chongli 4y agoWe’re talking about serving on a submarine, in the military. Quality of life takes a back seat to health and safety, performance, and the mission itself. Personal space and weight are extremely limited on board. What you’re suggesting is that smokers be given special accommodation by having their own room for smoking. Furthermore, they would need to be provided with special equipment to filter the air to remove all of the smoke produced by their smoking, otherwise it would spread throughout the other compartments as soon as they open the door to leave the smoking room. Is any of this reasonable? I don’t think it is. The only reasonable accommodation I can think of would be to allow smokers to bring a supply of nicotine gum or patches.
- jmount 4y agoIt is even better than that. Smokers used to sit and smoke in "non-smoking" to be away from the stale smoke.
- hgomersall 4y agoIt was like this on trains in the UK until fairly recently. The smoking carriage was generally pretty empty, but was frequented by those that needed to get their hit who then returned to the cleaner coaches.
- cafard 4y agoThe Long Island Railroad eliminated smoking cars something like twenty-five years ago because they cost so much more to clean.
- noduerme 4y ago[flagged]
- nkrisc 4y agoThose kids are going to be coughing on you regardless of whether smoking is allowed or not. If you were allowed to smoke on the plane then I should also be allowed to bring aboard my bucket of rotten fish.
- camillomiller 4y agoStop for a minute and think about the psychology of what you’ve just written. Instead of getting angry at aviation corporations who save money and maximize profits by degrading the quality of the very air you breath, you direct your anger towards other passengers and their kids. As they would against you. That said, you shouldn’t be allowed to smoke and masks should be mandatory on planes still in my opinion.
- hourago 4y ago> That said, you shouldn’t be allowed to smoke and masks should be mandatory on planes still in my opinion. That is a very reasonable approach. We are billions of humans living in close quarters. Let's make a little effort to offer high quality spaces to everybody. This happened with seat belts in cars, many people were offended by the idea but it is saving many lives each day.
- noduerme 4y ago>> Instead of getting angry at aviation corporations who save money and maximize profits by degrading Sorry! I skipped over the part where I was disturbed and disgusted at the fact that American had cut their filter expense by 80%. My friend's dad was not a smoker but was also appalled that the airline took that decision once they were free from the particulate strictures imposed by cigarettes, because he believed it made the air in the cabin filthy. So, overlaying all of my angst about children and anti-smoking zealots, I do understand that we've all been thrown into this arena by corporations who have lowered my standard of living. Those corporations have, to be fair, raised the standard of living of people who fly with 3 sick kids to Hawaii, when from my perspective without massive credit they would be raising those kids in a coal mine. In a way, it's almost socialism.
- michaelhoney 4y agoYou could smoke on the Hindenberg. Yes. On a dirigible held aloft by hydrogen, they had a smoking room:(https://www.airships.net/hindenburg-smoking-room/ https://www.airships.net/hindenburg-smoking-room/.
- andyjohnson0 4y ago> You could smoke on the Hindenberg. Yes. On a dirigible held aloft by hydrogen, they had a smoking room Seems insane, but I guess they didn't want homicidal nicotine-starved passengers. The article does however go on to say "The smoking room was kept at a higher pressure than the rest of the ship so that no leaking hydrogen could enter the room, and the smoking room was separated from the rest of the passenger section by a double-door airlock." So the designers seem to at least have been aware of the risks.
- MrFantastic 4y agoHindenberg got a bad rap. It just happened to look scary and was caught on film. 1/3 of the Hindenberg passengers survived the crash. Way better survival rate than plane crashes.
- Someone 4y agoIt was better. About ⅔ survived. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster: “The accident caused 35 fatalities (13 passengers and 22 crewmen) from the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), and an additional fatality on the ground.” That’s still worse than modern airplanes, though. https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/06/15/how-to-survive-a-plane-crash https://www.euronews.com/travel/2022/06/15/how-to-survive-a-...: “According to a study by the European Transport Safety Council, plane crashes technically have a 90% survivability rate”
- riceart 4y agoHow frequent are plane crashes compared to hydrogen filled dirigibles?
- quickthrower2 4y agoAdmirial Cloudberg covered at least one crash caused by fire caused by a cigarette. The response from the industry: smoke alarms. Banning smoking too was unthinkable!
- mjg59 4y agoBrand new aircraft still include fixtures to stub out cigarettes in the bathrooms, because it doesn't matter if you declare that something's forbidden, people will do it anyway and you need to do what you can to minimise harm.
- buildsjets 4y agoThe ashtray is required equipment, and you can't legally dispatch the airplane if it is inoperative, unless you disable that lavatory. Truth! 14 CFR 25.853 (g) https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-25/subpart-D/subject-group-ECFR1e1f52030ba4797/section-25.853 https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...
- Marsymars 4y agoWon’t smoking in an airplane bathroom set off an alarm?
- yencabulator 4y agoYes. The person triggering the alarm will still likely look for a place to extinguish the cigarette, and pretend they've done nothing wrong. The ashtray thing is there because otherwise those idiots will put the burning cigarette in the trash or in the tank with chemicals in which it might just cause a pile-up of debris and clogs.
- dredmorbius 4y agoI'd put this a bit differently, though with the same general idea: - The alarm will alert flight attendants to the situation, allow them to identify the violator of the non-smoking regulation, of the potentially hazardous situation (open flame in an aircraft), and if necessary bar the person from future flights. - The ashtray will likely prevent a lit cigarette from burning down the aircraft in flight if improperly disposed of with, say, dry paper trash. A smouldering cigarette in a rubbish bin could imperil the entire flight, passenger manifest, and crew.
- bambax 4y agoI don't think an accident ever occurred because of smoking in the cabin? (Possibly one because of smoking in the lavatory, and I'm not even sure). For smokers, going 4, 6 or 9 hours without smoking is just unthinkable; I know it was for me. So glad I quit (a very long time ago), but I don't know how smokers deal with it today.
- mkl 4y agoDo nicotine patches, gum, etc. not work? (Serious question)
- bambax 4y agoI never tried those but it seems they kind of work, yes? But some people seem to dislike them a lot.
- Vedor 4y agoI quit smoking the old-fashioned way so I don't have a first-hand experience in that matter, but I was thinking a lot about this once. I belive patches and gums may not work in every instance. Please let me provide some context. I was smoking for around 7 years, from my late teens (jus a couple smokes per day) to my early 20' (1.5–2 packs per day). I haven't smoked in quite a few years, I think it's close to 10 years, I don't count anymore. I have never felt addicted to nicotine. To cigarettes, yes. I was addicted to all those little smoking rituals, gestures, and to all that social behaviour around smoking. I liked going out on the balcony in the morning in my bathrobe just to smoke. Or go out to the garden with another smoker after a party and have a conversation that wouldn't otherwise happen. Hell, I even liked the gesture of shaking the ashes off a cigarette. Smoking was also a way to deal with boredom for me, a bit like a smartphone now. I'm waiting for a bus that won't arrive for 15 minutes? That's a great time to smoke a cigarette or two. To the point: would nicotine patch help me to quit smoking? Probably yes, on the long run. Would gum / snuff / snus limit my craving to cigarettes to the point where I could work in a completely smoke-free place? I do not think so.
- Veen 4y agoI find they do not work. I suspect it's because there are two components to continued smoking. The first is the nicotine addiction. The second is the sensory experience. The act of smoking becomes such an ingrained habit it's hard to stop even when you don't feel cravings. And smoking is pleasurable and relaxing in a way patches and gum aren't. Plus, the gums taste foul and make your throat feel weird.
- mcv 4y agoWhat about smoking in restaurants? You're trying to enjoy the taste of delicious food, and suddenly the tobacco smoke from the next table wafts into your nostrils. Bizarre that that was ever considered normal.
- comboy 4y agoI wouldn't stand it right now, but it was everywhere so it wasn't annoying. I think smell adjusts to certain things not just temporarily but also on some longer periods. As a kid I wouldn't notice which friends parents smoked at home and which didn't, even though I came from a non-smoking home. And most of them lived in small apartments, so it must have been reeking.
- donatj 4y agoI don’t smoke, but my mom smokes heavily. Whenever my wife (whose parents did not smoke) and I visit my parents, she always remarks afterwards on how terrible the smell was but I never really notice it at all despite having lived on my own for 15+ years now. I really think it’s just something your brain blocks out, it doesn’t smell like much to me.
- michaelrpeskin 4y agoWhen I was an intern in the 1990's, I was on a team of old unix greybeards. Every 20 minutes or so, someone would have to go outside for a smoke break and they invited me along because that's where all the good design discussions would happen. Even today, I immediately recognize the smell of Marlboro Lights if I walk past a group of folks smoking outside.
- water-data-dude 4y agoI grew up in a town with a lot of feedlots, and I still don’t notice the smell when I visit. I definitely think your brain will block out background smells you grow up with. I wonder if that’s how people were able to live in medieval towns without sewers.
- 4y ago
- hutzlibu 4y ago"How the hell someone EVER thought it would be a good idea to let people smoke while packed inside a flying metal cylinder?" Quite some smokers still think, it is not bad for them, so it can't be bad for others, so why care? I mean, if it would be really unhealthy, they wouldn't do it to themself. Cognitive dissonance is real.
- Dalewyn 4y agoAs unhealthy and disgusting as smokers' clouds are, that wasn't the truly dangerous thing. What was and still is dangerous are the open flames and high temperatures involved with smoking and other flammables. A fire aboard an aircraft can quickly lead to a crash, so the less flammables there are the better. You don't use fire on airplanes, end of.
- jaclaz 4y agoSure, but - statistically/historically - how many fires were recorded in airplanes due to smoking (or to the use of lighter or matches)? Mind you, I do smoke but still find a good idea to ban smoke on board of aircrafts, though I don't think it has ever been a relevant risk (compared to all the risks implied in flights). BTW (and AFAIK) the real issue (money) was the cost to the companies of cleaning/replacing the filters of the air circulation that mainly drove - as soon as it could be socially accepted - companies to ban smoking in aircrafts.
- defrost 4y agoThe 2016 EgyptAir plane crash of flight MS804 which had been, at the time, attributed by Egyptian authorities to terrorism, was eventually found to have been caused by the pilot smoking a cigarette in the cockpit, French investigators have concluded. https://greekreporter.com/2022/04/30/2016-egyptair-plane-crash-caused-by-pilot-smoking-cigarette-investigation-reveals/ https://greekreporter.com/2022/04/30/2016-egyptair-plane-cra... Crashing isn't the only risk: In-flight air quality measurements in approximately 250 aircraft, generalised by models, indicate that when smoking was permitted aloft, 95% of the harmful respirable suspended particle (RSP) air pollution in the smoking sections and 85% of that in the non-smoking sections of aircraft cabins was caused by SHS (Second Hand Smoke). Typical levels of SHS-RSP on aircraft violated current (PM(2.5)) federal air quality standards approximately threefold for flight attendants, and exceeded SHS irritation thresholds by 10 to 100 times. From cotinine dosimetry, SHS exposure of typical flight attendants in aircraft cabins is estimated to have been >6-fold that of the average US worker and approximately 14-fold that of the average person. Flying the smoky skies: secondhand smoke exposure of flight attendants https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14985612/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14985612/
- mattmanser 4y agoI remember reading closer to the time they banned smoking on planes of engineers complaining that when people stopped smoking on planes it made it much harder to inspect for hairline cracks! The smoke would highlight the cracks yellow. Can't find any first hand sources now but this article touches on it: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/opaRvBMRcuk7pWbZD/smoking-cigarettes-in-airplanes-made-the-airplanes-safer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/opaRvBMRcuk7pWbZD/smoking-ci...
- werdnapk 4y agoNot sure if it's still allowed in Japan, but I still recall walking through a smoking car on a bullet train on my way to my non-smoking car about 20 years ago and my god, I'm pretty sure there was zero ventilation with the whole car smoking. I had to hold my breath from one end to the other, it was so intense. I can't fathom how people could survive a whole train ride in there while also smoking themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if this is still allowed as smoking is still quite ubiquitous in Japan. They even smoked inside at work. Being from North America, it was like stepping back in time 20 years.
- cmg 4y agoI took the Shinkansen on my last trip to Japan in 2016 and I didn't see any smoking cars, but there were closed-off smoking rooms available on the train with really good ventilation systems.
- cortic 4y agoI read somewhere that banning smoking on planes lead to a lot of deep vein thrombosis cases, as they didn't need to swap the air out as much leading to higher c02 levels. But stupid shortsightedness aside; it was crazy, they needed to put the smokers (which was me at the time) at the back of the plane as that's the direction of the airflow inside, but the toilets were at the back so everyone had to walk through the smoking section anyway..
- foobarbecue 4y agoA carbon dioxide - DVT link? Sure sounds like bunk. Please be careful of spreading medical misinformation.
- kadoban 4y agoYeah, that one sounds weird on the face of it. If anything would have an effect, I'd guess the relative absense of nicotine in people would be a big part. Though I thought nicotine _causes_ blood clots, it's possible that that's a chronic effect and the acute effect would prevent them, I'm not sure.
- cortic 4y agoI can't find the original article, but from Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_vein_thrombosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_vein_thrombosis) [inflammation has been identified as playing a clear causal role] and studies(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20387988/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20387988/) ironically tobacco studies, of 5% CO2 show an inflammatory response. Another poster here cited 3% was be the safe limit, so its feasible that turning the system off to save money could put the CO2 over 5% quite quickly. Also the concentration of oxygen is listed on Wikipedia as a direct cause of DVT, which would obviously be affected.
- foobarbecue 4y agoThat's talking about lack of oxygen in your blood, not in the air. I have a lot of experience working long days in a high CO2 environment (did my PhD working in volcanic ice caves). IIRC OSHA rules say 5000ppm (0.5%) is the limit for a 40 hr work week (that's more than 10x atmospheric). There is no way CO2 on planes is getting over 1%--- that would cause a lot of health problems. DVT would not be one of them.
- Spooky23 4y agoI worked at a place where a floor of an office building was converted to a data center starting in the 70s. In doing so, they built a false wall in front of the windows. Early in my career I worked in backups, and we had a dedicated fiber network, which ran in the space between the windows and fake wall. I had to do some maintenance back there and it was shocking - the windows were coated in this nasty yellow residue and smelled vaguely like cigarettes, even after almost 20 years. The old timers laughed at my horror and said that people would sit at their desks and smoke packs of cigarettes, every day. At one point there was an employee who would wheel a cart around collecting ashes. The ubiquity of smoking was shocking to me - I’m glad it’s behind us.
- velobusdriver 4y ago"the windows were coated in this nasty yellow residue and smelled vaguely like cigarettes" I painted a room in my parent's home after decades of smoking that occurred long before and after I was born. First step was to wash the thick layer of nicotine and tar off of the walls using Trisodium Phosphate or other strong cleaner. A stain blocking primer, typically used for smoke damage from fires, was then applied, and then you can paint. Even then, you could still detect the faint odor of cigarettes. Nasty stuff.