Airlines Light Up the ‘No-Smoking’ Sign

As pilots prepared to switch on the “no-smoking” sign aboard most domestic airliners today, smokers and nonsmokers alike cheered a new federal law prohibiting cigarette smoking on flights lasting less than two hours.

The ban affects passengers riding on about 80% of U.S. air carriers’ estimated 17,300 daily flights. Travelers lighting up in defiance of the law could face a $1,000 fine.

But smokers and airline employees alike predicted that there will be few violations by passengers, who are already restricted from smoking on one carrier’s planes and on all flights between California cities.

Charter flights, international flights and all flights by foreign airlines are exempt from the new smoking ban, which takes effect today.

“If the airlines banned cigarette smoking altogether I wouldn’t mind it,” said traveler Jim O’Neil of Delmont, Pa., puffing on a cigarette Friday as he waited at Los Angeles International Airport for a flight to Pittsburgh. “Smoking is not good for me or for those sitting around me.”

Topanga Canyon resident Danielle Lee also lit up a cigarette as she awaited a flight to Las Vegas.

“Even though I’m a smoker, it bothers me when someone smokes in a closed-up plane. The new law is a good idea,” Lee said.

It may not be a permanent one, however. At the end of two years, Congress will evaluate the ban’s effect and decide whether to continue it. Health officials said Friday that they are hoping that the prohibition lasts forever.

“It’s sound public policy to protect the lungs of nonsmokers from secondhand smoke,” said Dr. Spencer Koerner, president of the Los Angeles County chapter of the American Lung Assn. “Most smokers can tolerate not smoking at the movies or in church or in the synagogue. We think they can put up with a two-hour flight.”

Koerner’s group has suggested that nervous smokers chew gum or suck on candy during such flights. At least one carrier, American Airlines, has said it plans to provide hard candies to passengers.

Hard-core smokers were skeptical Friday that such ploys will work, however.

“Some people get nervous when they fly,” said Gary Krueger, a Buena Park printer clutching a cigarette as he prepared to board a plane for a 65-minute hop to Las Vegas. “I’ll be biting my fingernails on the flight back home on Sunday.”

Said another Las Vegas-bound passenger, Fullerton resident Linda Navarro: “I guess they’ll be confiscating our matches at the boarding gate. I’ll just have to smoke like a fiend until I get on.”

Edith Nelson, who said she has been a smoker for 40 of her 76 years, said she hopes officials relent and allow smokers to once again congregate at the rear of planes.

“Back there, you’re not bothering anybody but the girls in the back who are serving lunch. And most of them smoke too,” she said.

Not so, said Suzanne Haughton, a flight attendant for USAir. She said she knows colleagues who have been forced to quit work because of respiratory problems brought on by secondhand cigarette smoke aboard airliners.

“The majority of us absolutely support the new law,” said Haughton of Charlotte, N.C. “I don’t look forward to the conflicts that will come with it, though. There are going to be problems. There are passengers who rip your head off on a 28-minute flight if they can’t smoke.”

Cockpit crews are prepared to enforce the law, however, said Paul Stermer, a first officer with United Airlines.

“If they try to sneak a smoke in the lavatories, there are smoke detectors that we can hear all the way in the front,” said Stermer of Fresno.

There were indications Friday that passengers will also be on the alert for suspected unauthorized smoking. Smoker Neal Ziegman of Seattle found that out when he lit up in a Los Angeles International terminal waiting area posted with “no-smoking” signs.

Other travelers angrily confronted him and loudly demanded that he put the cigarette out.

“They’ve gone too far,” Ziegman said.

He vowed to hunt for a through flight home that will avoid stopovers--and thus avoid the effect of the new two-hour flight rule.