Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 6, 1994 TAG: 9401060088
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Since last summer, airlines have been slowly adding to the number of smokeless international flights by prohibiting smoking on certain routes.
Smoking has been banned on domestic U.S. flights for years, and big European airlines such as British Airways and Air France disallowed smoking on flights of less than 90 minutes within Europe.
Qantas prohibits smoking on international flights of less than four hours and leaves the no-smoking sign lit during three of its 10 weekly nonstop flights from the United States to Australia. On Monday, the Australian airline banned smoking on an additional 72 flights each week.
"As we got fewer and fewer requests to sit in the smoking section, we just said, `OK, we'll just not have smoking,' " said Joan Boyd, a U.S. marketing executive for Qantas.
Since the first of the year, British Airways has prohibited smoking on its routes between London and Australia and New Zealand - trips that can take up to 24 hours. And Northwest Airlines, a large carrier to Asia, where smoking is more common, said Tuesday it was banning smoking in all its international first-class cabins.
United, the largest U.S. international carrier, is considering curtailing or prohibiting smoking on some of its overseas flights and may announce a decision soon, spokesman Tony Molinaro said.
Airlines have been selective about which routes they banned smoking on and have frequently sought to appease smokers.
Northwest will still have smoking sections in international business and coach classes, for instance. And while British Airways has permanently banned smoking on one flight a day between the United States and Hong Kong or between London and Los Angeles or San Francisco, it still allows smoking on at least one other daily flight on those routes.
Some airlines have had to reverse no-smoking policies after passengers protested.
"The German market was rather vociferous about their right to smoke," said Lufthansa spokesman Charles Croche about a recent effort to ban smoking on flights within Germany. "But we look at it every year or so."
Northwest said its market research showed 70 percent of all its international passengers prefer smoke-free cabins. Of Asia-based international passengers, 63 percent favor no-smoking.
Northwest, one of the largest trans-Pacific carriers, restricted the smoking ban to its most expensive seats, recognizing that many Asian customers want to smoke, the airline said. Northwest said it will ban smoking on more of its planes if passengers want.
by CNB