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• How US airlines became smoke free
  Stuart Houston
  Published on: 13 May 2016

• Published on: 13 May 2016

  How US airlines became smoke free

  • Stuart Houston, Professor Emeritus of Medical Imaging

  EDITOR,-- The letter from Henningfield and Rose (Tobacco Control 10:295-296), provides valuable historic information about US Federal Aviation Administration Policy to prohibit smoking in both the passenger section and the flight deck. of scheduled passenger flights. They tell of the smoking ban passed by Congress in 1989. Yes, their letter offers lessons about political and bureaucratic achievements. But they told only...

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  EDITOR,-- The letter from Henningfield and Rose (Tobacco Control 10:295-296), provides valuable historic information about US Federal Aviation Administration Policy to prohibit smoking in both the passenger section and the flight deck. of scheduled passenger flights. They tell of the smoking ban passed by Congress in 1989. Yes, their letter offers lessons about political and bureaucratic achievements. But they told only one part of the story. The influence of anti-tobacco activists, especially Betty Carnes, is of even greater interest and should not be forgotten. Single handedly, Betty obtained the first non-smoking flight on a scheduled airline, American Airlines, on one flight, New York to Phoenix, on 8 August 1971.

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  On August 8, 1971, American Airlines provided three rows of non- smoking seats on flights between New York and Phoenix, Arizona. It was an idea whose time had come. The news of it spread like wildfire. Passengers responded with enthusiasm and commendation. American Airlines realized it was onto something popular and soon extended non-smoking seats to other flights. Its competitors were forced to do the same. Gradually, the non-smoking rows increased from three to six to a dozen rows and, within a few years, over half of the rows were non-smoking, throughout North America, and later around the world. Gradually, all scheduled flights, worldwide, became smoke-free. The airlines saved money in all sorts of ways. Cleaning costs went way down. Their flight attendants were no longer subjected to occupational smoke. Tar deposits, which had spewed out of air-conditioning systems and could add up to 45 kilograms in a year when smokers were on board, ceased to be a non-remunerative payload. Who achieved this breakthrough, this public health and preventive medicine achievement, that has spread to many other venues throughout society and must have saved lives that otherwise might have been lost to second-hand smoke? Betty Carnes, of Scottsdale, Arizona. In 1971, Carnes was travelling on an American Airlines plane between Houston and Phoenix when the air-conditioning and filter system stopped working. This did not stop Betty's chain-smoking seatmate. He refused to extinguish his cigarette.

  AIt was terribly embarrassing to grab an air bag and be sick in front of all those people, recalled Carnes. Because the Carneses were frequent air travellers (her husband, Herbert, flew to executive meetings of American Home Products in New Jersey), Betty arranged with Paul Willmore, the American Airlines sales manager in Phoenix to provide three rows of non-smoking seats, New York to Phoenix only. This 30th anniversary is of special significance to me, because Betty was a fellow birdbander and a long-time correspondent and special friend. She was the first woman to become an elective member of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU), in 1955. She banded 10,000 birds and attended more consecutive meetings (39) of the AOU than anyone else. Mary and I visited her at her beautiful retirement home with a three-acre waterfowl park in Tempe, Arizona. Each year, at the annual meeting of the AOU, Betty would take the Houston family out to supper, usually at the Faculty Club at the host University. Her efforts were not restricted to air travel. She invented the sign, AThank You for Not Smoking. In 1973, she succeeded in persuading the Arizona legislature to become the first state to prohibit smoking in public places, such as elevators, libraries, art museums, indoor theatres, concert halls and public transit systems. By 1983, the Arizona law had been the model for similar legislation in 32 other states.

  At the First World Conference on Nonsmokers' Rights, held in Washington, DC in 1985, Carnes was recognized (along with the late Dr. Luther L. Terry, who presented the first Surgeon General=s Report on Smoking in 1964) as one of the Atwo pioneers of the nonsmokers= rights movement. Carnes died at Scottsdale on October 15, 1987, but her achievements deserve to be remembered.

  [The was published as an editorial in The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix on August 9, 2001, one day after "Betty Carnes Day."]

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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