Tobacco Industry Fumes at Airline’s Ban on Smoking

Northwest Airlines said it was trying to clear the air when it decided earlier this week to ban smoking on domestic flights. But the Tobacco Institute claims that it was just a smoke screen.

The cigarette industry’s lobbying arm slammed the carrier in a news release highlighting consumer complaints filed against Northwest with the Transportation Department. It accused the Minneapolis-based carrier of focusing on smoking complaints to deflect attention from other, more critical passenger concerns.

“Airline passengers who fly Northwest Airlines appear to have a lot to complain about--they did so in droves last year,” the institute said in a prepared statement. “Northwest is at or near the bottom of the worst-ranked airlines for delays or cancellations, overbookings, lost and damaged luggage, customer service, obtaining tickets or boarding the aircraft. If Northwest is truly attempting to satisfy passenger concerns about service, any number of issues deserves higher priority than smoking,” the statement said.

Heated Issue

Northwest, in turn, accused the Tobacco Institute of clouding matters with its announcement. “It is the strangest press release that I’ve ever seen,” said spokesman Bob Gibbons. “It certainly is a vitriolic attack on Northwest. You can sense by the stridency of the statement that they aren’t interested in addressing the issue.”

Gibbons said the statement ignores the consumer research Northwest did before announcing its decision, which goes into effect on April 23. That is also when a federal regulation banning smoking on all domestic flights of two hours or less becomes effective.

Ban Based on Survey

Northwest is going further than any other major airline by banning smoking on all flights in the contiguous 48 states. The ban also applies to flights to and from Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

The ban is based on the expressed desires of an overwhelming majority of smoking and non-smoking passengers surveyed, Gibbons said. Since the decision was announced, consumer response has been “10-to-1 in favor of what we’re doing,” he said.

In the war over smoking rights, the Tobacco Institute has defended the interests of cigarette companies with gusto, said Alan Davis, a spokesman for the American Cancer Society. The broadside directed at Northwest “is not at all out of line for them,” he said.

“They weren’t very complimentary of the secretary of defense when he banned smoking in military jobs. And they attacked us indirectly. They have a lot of high-paid people over there. They have to justify themselves,” Davis said.

Tobacco Institute spokeswoman Brennan Moran said the criticism of Northwest wasn’t the beginning of an offensive against businesses that ban smoking. She explained that the institute had gotten a lot of complaints from Northwest passengers.

“It just stuck out to us that Northwest was doing this at the very time they had so many complaints,” she said. “A lot of things just didn’t add up.”