Smokeless Flying

Congress has temporarily banned smoking on domestic airline flights lasting two hours or less in response to medical evidence that the toxins in tobacco smoke harm not just smokers but the people around them, not the least within the closed environment of an airliner cabin. But if smoking on short flights is now seen as presenting intolerable health dangers to nonsmoking passengers and crew members, then smoking on longer flights obviously poses even greater hazards. The Senate has now recognized that by voting to forbid smoking on all domestic airline flights.

Getting the House to go along with this prohibition won’t be easy, given the influence of the well-financed tobacco lobby. But it shouldn’t prove impossible, either. The House has already acknowledged the health perils to nonsmokers aboard airliners by voting to make permanent the smoking ban on shorter flights that is due to expire next February. That must be done, but not as a trade-off to banning smoking on longer flights.

It’s clear now that the air-filtration systems on passenger planes aren’t effective in screening out tobacco smoke pollutants. The result is that the more than 80% of passengers who are nonsmokers are beset by gaseous poisons. A total smoking ban would of course make a cross-country flight uncomfortable for smokers. Millions of Americans who are former smokers can feel compassion for what they face. But the vast majority of passengers are nonsmokers, and they have a right to be protected. The Senate has seen that. The House has no rational reason for not doing so as well.