My Right to Smoke in An Airplane

No, I have never smoked a cigarette. There was a brief time in my early twenties that I tried an occasional cigar or a scholarly pipe, but never a cancer stick. Because my mother asked me not to.

My first trip in an airplane was in 1959, a flight that carried the Lewis College basketball team to Washington D.C. for a tournament at the Quantico marine base. Taking off from Midway Airport, I had no inkling that over the years I would accumulate nearly 2 million miles on United Airlines and additional miles on other air carriers. 

Passengers were allowed to smoke cigarettes, cigars, or pipes despite the potential damage to my lungs as a non-smoker. Finally, in 1971 United restricted smoking to certain sections. 

Beginning in 1983, flying became a critical part of my jobs. Although I always sat in the non-smoking area, smoke never seemed to follow the same rules. It wasn’t until 1989 that cigars were no longer allowed, and 1990 that smoking was banned on all United States flights.

(Did smoking in a plane ever serve to be helpful to anyone else beside the smoker? Yes. Air leakage in the plane were identified by maintenance staff who could find plane nicotine stains around the breach. So, if I inhaled during the flight, I, too, got more than my share of nicotine.)  

Individual Freedoms

While alcohol consuming airline passengers pose no direct danger to me, smokers do. And to the flight attendants whose livelihood depended on inhaling foul airplane air. The question that I pose relates to the “common good” versus the attitude “it’s all about me.” Doesn’t any arbitrary action – that which endangers other people’s health – fall into this category of harmful selfish behavior? 

Of course, there are situations when being selfish is entire appropriate and necessary. For example, we all need to take care of ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually. By doing this, we not only help ourselves, we are better able to care for others. 

And that’s the point. We are here on this planet to be good and do good. It is a part of our nature to continue and advance the human species. As members of a global team, we work toward a goal of maintaining and evolving the human species into the future. I may not be here, but my kids and grandkids will be, so caring about others is embedded into our rationale for existence.

Thankfully…

The greatest proportion of human beings are unselfish regardless of family connections. It is why we go to the aid of strangers and other living beings who are in immediate danger. It’s why we even avoid running over that vacillating varmint (squirrel) that cannot make up its mind about crossing the road. We naturally have a high respect for all living things.

The airline industry, the tobacco lobby, and other businesses would not be expected to be concerned about customers’ physical health. Dollars will always receive preferential treatment over the “common good” of the vulnerable. The same can be said of those people whose selfish needs or desires override the health and welfare concerns of others.

As I write these words, I realize that air quality is a much bigger challenge than sitting in an airplane with a cigar smoker in front of me. Just a few days ago, the worst air quality in the world was reported to be in Denver. But air quality on the planet is merely a symptom of the issues confronting my kids and grandkids during the next 50 years. The common good requires people who care for the health and welfare of others. It’s not all about me and my freedom to do whatever I want.

I am confident that the next two generations will successfully take on this challenge.

“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes