> In other words, the air on the plane was quite a bit cleaner when there were ashtrays next to the seats.

That doesn't follow from what you wrote.

Anyway, it is easy to look at actual research on cabin air quality and see your claim is false.

"Typical levels of SHS-RSP on aircraft violated current (PM(2.5)) federal air quality standards approximately threefold for flight attendants, and exceeded SHS irritation thresholds by 10 to 100 times. From cotinine dosimetry, SHS exposure of typical flight attendants in aircraft cabins is estimated to have been >6-fold that of the average US worker and approximately 14-fold that of the average person. Thus, ventilation systems massively failed to control SHS air pollution in aircraft cabins."

The decrease in particles with the smoking ban doesn't prove or disprove what I'm asserting, which is that (a) bleed air into the cabin was reduced and (b) filters were replaced less often, after the tobacco ban. In fact, what I'm saying is that the airlines leveraged the tobacco ban and commensurate reduction in measurable PM(2.5) as a legal excuse to reduce filtration of air five-fold, resulting in much higher levels of viral particles recirculating.

Replacing filters that aren’t near end of life doesn’t result in higher air quality, any more than me replacing my pasta strainer more often would result in better pasta.

As a non smoker, I’d much rather breathe on a plane today than potentially next to someone smoking.

How do you know if the reduction in filters / bleed air causes more people to get sick? Filters would naturally require less replacement since they don’t have to take away as many toxins. Couldn’t that allow filters to free up more viral particles?

> If I lit a cigarette as I'd like to, their parents might attack me for shaving a few theoretical seconds off their lives.

Many things are not harmful if just done one, but you are not alone. I understand that if you are allowed to smoke many other people would also, and it would have a noticeable detriment in peoples live quality.

If everyone is allowed to take their coughing children on airplanes, it's a detriment to my life quality. What's the difference? Why are ten coughing children without masks less lethal than ten adults smoking cigarettes?

The difference is hyperbole. You make it sound like you’re being personally harassed by a minimum of 10 children, possibly taking shift coverage to make sure to infect you 24x7.

And you’re comparing that with actual smokers who would actually light up at every opportunity.

Oh it’s “just one cigarette” that you would smoke right? Just one. Why are these unreasonable people persecuting you unreasonably for just one. Of course you wouldn’t smoke a second. Of course no one else would smoke one after seeing you.

Children light up at every opportunity. If you've ever been in a row with a few of them, they have no control over the contents of their lungs. Smokers do, actually, ask in most cases.

In terms ten second-hand cigarettes damaging you on a flight, or ten coughing children, I don't understand how you think the smoke would be more dangerous. Cancer risk from smoke is cumulative, whereas risk from contagious diseases is immediate.

> Smokers do, actually, ask in most cases.

I take it you didn't live through the era of unrestricted tobacco smoking then. Smokers absolutely do not ask whether they can smoke unless they know they really shouldn't, but hope they'll be allowed to anyway.

Aside from that, it is obviously ridiculous to compare disease (which is rarely something one gets willingly, and cannot be stopped at will) with smoking (a wilful decision, and something that can be stopped at will).

I'm sorry that you may have encountered smokers who didn't ask your permission. But I have never encountered a parent who asked my permission before their child coughed in my face. I'm comparing the thoughtless spreading of diseases with the, relatively, under the circumstances, thoughtful manner in which most smokers exhale their poison. And, relative to the immediate toxicity of the poisons in question, there's no doubt that the parents of children should be asking permission.

How far removed from real life must you be to complain that parents aren't asking you for permission before... allowing their children to be sick? Allowing their sick children to cough?

Disease is an unavoidable fact of human life and children are a necessary piece of society, but tobacco is entirely unneeded.

I'm just saying that it's hardly more of a burden on society for someone to burn some dry leaves than for someone to create a new human or several of them, with all the burden that places on our ecosystem and our society. Having children is a wildly antisocial and narcissistic act in the modern world. It's hilarious and ironic that the people who defend it are the same ones who care whether I smoke a cigarette from time to time, or who whinge about global warming. The worst thing you can possibly do to the planet is to have a child. It outweighs every personal measure you might take against carbon emissions, tenfold, for reasons that are too obvious to explain. Yet this, and the imposition of said children on me, is somehow justifiable whereas my having a cigarette on an airplane would be unimaginable. I think the modern word for the perspective of parents who believe they have a natural right to take up more resources than their own bodies require, solely because they did something any animal can do - ie. reproduced - is "privilege".

This line of reasoning troubles me. Calling swaths of people narcissistic and antisocial isn’t productive and comes off as really hateful and bitter. IDK. Maybe hacker news isn’t a healthy place for me to be. Perhaps I need to take a break from the Internet.

I think it's important to point out that I didn't "call" any swath of people anything; I flipped the accusation of engaging in antisocial behavior that's routinely leveled at childless, hedonistic smokers on its head, and made the counter-argument that our impact is relatively small compared to people who willingly have children. That is definitely an unpopular view, and I'm proud to state it. You can totally consider it unproductive and debate it on the merits. As to the feelings my point of view engenders, 1. my comments don't really matter and you are free to ignore them; 2. you're free to discuss or debate them; 3. you don't need to take them personally, because I'm just one person with my own opinion. As unpopular as it is. You can't expect everyone to only write things you love and agree with, especially those who aren't directly responding to you or didn't know you existed until moments ago. I'm sorry if my thoughts hurt your feelings.

[edit] Taking a break from the internet is never a bad idea, though. I could probably use one myself. I could use another trip. I do wish the alternative to staying home wasn't getting on a plane with everyone else's children... only slightly kidding.

> Smokers do, actually, ask in most cases.

That's not my experience, at all. In places where they are allowed to smoke, which used to be everywhere, they either take it for granted that they can smoke and just do it; or they 'ask' with something like "surely you don't mind" while already lighting their cigarette. And some of them do the same even in places where they're not allowed to, but fortunately that's a shrinking minority.

Stop for a minute and think about the psychology of what you’ve just written. Instead of getting angry at aviation corporations who save money and maximize profits by degrading the quality of the very air you breath, you direct your anger towards other passengers and their kids. As they would against you. That said, you shouldn’t be allowed to smoke and masks should be mandatory on planes still in my opinion.

> That said, you shouldn’t be allowed to smoke and masks should be mandatory on planes still in my opinion.

That is a very reasonable approach. We are billions of humans living in close quarters. Let's make a little effort to offer high quality spaces to everybody. This happened with seat belts in cars, many people were offended by the idea but it is saving many lives each day.

>> Instead of getting angry at aviation corporations who save money and maximize profits by degrading

Sorry! I skipped over the part where I was disturbed and disgusted at the fact that American had cut their filter expense by 80%. My friend's dad was not a smoker but was also appalled that the airline took that decision once they were free from the particulate strictures imposed by cigarettes, because he believed it made the air in the cabin filthy.

So, overlaying all of my angst about children and anti-smoking zealots, I do understand that we've all been thrown into this arena by corporations who have lowered my standard of living. Those corporations have, to be fair, raised the standard of living of people who fly with 3 sick kids to Hawaii, when from my perspective without massive credit they would be raising those kids in a coal mine. In a way, it's almost socialism.

How are you not understanding that they didn’t “cut filter expense by 80%”, but simply they get 1/5th as dirty?

If not less. My educated guess is they used to get changed more often than required due to clogging, and now they’re just changed based on some minimum required.

Have you ever lived with a smoker? My grandmother’s house used to have to be repainted every other year before her death. Do you think we just “greedily cut painting costs by 80%” because we repainted it once in ten years since, or might it have to do with walls yellowing due to particulate?

They get less visually dirty, but the same amount of human breath passes through them. It's not just that; the airlines cut the fresh air intake as a portion of circulated air. By not being as visually noticeable, they didn't need to change the filters as often; yet that meant that the filters would have 5x the viral load when they were finally changed out. They used the elimination of smoking as an excuse to save money on basic hygiene. Does this make sense?

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Where did you even hear about this specific number in how often they used to change their filters vs now? Do you have any idea what the reasons are for them changing filters, how they decide? What the minimum is? How they measure it?

You seem to not really even understand how air filtration works.

If one day people aren't allowed to smoke, does the volume of air passing through the filter drop by 80%?

Do all the other particulates, e.g. viruses and bacteria, drop by 80%?

No? So what makes you think the filter needs to be changed 1/5th as often?

I'm guessing you've been smoking so long, you don't know what it's like to not live in polluted air. When you change an air filter, repaint a house, wash the inside of a car, you can immediately tell whether somebody is a smoker. It's fucking gross, and I suspect that it's not 1/5th, but probably 1/20th as often. "What makes me think that" is plain simple experience.

I don't have the full paper handy (and can't be bothered to look this up just for you) but the highlights should be enough for you on this one:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...

Covid exists, it always will at this rate, and the rest of us won't be suffering for your insecurity about your own immune system. You wear a mask if you like. If it works, you have nothing to worry about.

It's a basic courtesy to wear a mask if you know you have a respiratory issue (whether it's a cold, the flu, or Covid doesn't really matter). Masks work much much better when the sick person is wearing them.

I think it should also be something that cabin attendants can force you to do - if they notice you have cold/flu/Covid symptoms, and you are not wearing a mask, they should be allowed to bring a mask to you and ask you to wear it, and you shouldn't be allowed to say no.

No, it's a basic courtesy to stay home if you are sick. Airborne diseases cannot be prevented by mask wearing between sips of your courtesy peanuts and soda.

And plenty is lost about a society that focuses more about preventing illness than just staying generally healthy. Smiling is good for you, engaging with your fellow humans, with full facial expressions available for communication and connection, are absolutely essential to a happy and fulfilling life.

So you expect people who have planned an expensive vacation and booked a flight to cancel everything if they get the sniffles? Should they also self-isolate and avoid grocery shopping, all public transport etc for 5-10 days after their first sore throat? And note, I'm saying this as someone who has just renounced a week-long vacation and two non-refundable flights because I tested positive for Covid, even though I barely had any symptoms, because I do believe the risk to others is too great. Not so for a cold.

While masks are far from 100% efficiency, they are still much much much better than doing nothing, while self-isolation for minor illnesses like a common cold is not in any way realistic.

Also, I'm explicitly not saying that we should always wear masks - the dangers of un-treatable, un-vaccinatable Covid (that 100% justified universal mask wearing) have passed. But, when you're sick and for various reasons have to be in closed spaces with others, wear a mask.

Yes, actually. If you know you've got the flu or some other mild-but-still-serious illness, you don't go outside your home unless it's absolutely necessary (eg: going to the hospital, buying essential groceries).

And before you say "I don't care if I pass my flu around.": Stay home /for your own sake/. What the fuck do you think is going to happen if your mild illness takes a turn for the worst right when you're overseas? I hope you have good traveller's insurance, or otherwise sufficient savings to afford medical and emergency care out of pocket.

Winter in the Midwest, especially if you have kids, is an unending parade of mild cold symptoms. It's not reasonable to ask everyone to seal themselves inside forever.

What about some common cold? That's still very spreadable, but it is far from a serious illness.

Also, if you have mild respiratory symptoms (say, you're sniffling and your throat is a little sore), do you immediately go and run various tests to see what specific pathogen it is, or do you take some symptomatic treatment and go about your life? Why not add "and wear a mask outside" to that?

Oh mah goodness.

Courtesy peanuts are another thing from a bygone era, decades ago...

Once upon a time, air travel was only available to people who needed to go somewhere or had the means to do so. We're in a little gap right now where first class is diminished to almost steerage, but private jets are a little too expensive. It's probably a reflection of the widening rich/poor gap. There used to be a way for people who earned in the top 20% to travel without having to subject themselves to the other 80%. Now you really have to be in the top 0.1% to travel without the garbage.

The irony is that the top 0.1% and the bottom 80% both have shit manners, and only when you make the top 20% act well and put on their shoes do you have something resembling civilization.

Yeah but what you gonna do if they do say no?

You can’t kick them off, you’re not going to get violent with them and coerce them so the only answer is turning the plane around if they don’t and how do you think the other passengers will react to that.

End of the day the rest of the world has moved on and no longer consider all this an issue and would rather just get on with their lives without inconvenience and yeah we can imagine a world where they have a bit more empathy for those that haven’t but I just don’t see how you can imagine that scenario playing out.

You explain to them nicely that they will be arrested and/or put on a no-fly list once they arrive at the next airport. It's the same with anyone breaking other rules on an airplane mid-flight - such as smoking, vaping, spritzing perfume or various other activities that are normal in other situations but illegal on an airplane.

How do you think the mask mandates were enforced mid-flight when they were universal?

Also, everything in saying is already common practice in much of the world, especially in East Asia.

You misspelled "can't be bothered to contribute to the wellbeing of the people around us". Incidentally, you think wearing a rated mask for a couple hours qualifies as "suffering"? When did notionally adult humans get this soft? Try working 10 hours straight in a tyvek bunny suit and full face respiratory PPE. We'd be carting you off my jobsite in a wheelbarrow after 30 minutes.

So, I also think politesse is really a critical skill and function in society. I've never smoked in close proximity to anyone without asking them if they minded if I lit up first. I also have never coughed on an airplane. Never. Not once. I've flown upwards of 200,000 miles in my life. I don't understand this urge people have to spread their germs as soon as they get seated and buckled in. I know the air is dry; control yourself. Really, try to control yourself.

So what you write is really the basic truth: Try to contribute to the wellbeing of people around you. That shouldn't be so hard.

Agree, but with one amendment.

Coughing is not necessarily the problem. You can cough without having a respiratory disease, and respiratory disease can transmit without coughing.

> without asking them if they minded if I lit up first

It's impolite to ask.

> I also have never coughed on an airplane

lol, sure

I do contribute to the wellbeing of the 95+% of the people who choose not to wear a mask and want to engage in human connection with the full range of emotional and facial expressiveness we were blessed with for that purpose, by not focusing on the irrational belief that wearing PPE 24/7 is even remotely possible or desirable, and accepting the statistical reality that in 2023, the vast majority of the population have been exposed to several strains of Covid. No amount of hiding from it prevents the acquisition of it. But plenty of warmth and light is lost in the world from the social constraints imposed by mask-wearing.

The discussion was about wearing a mask when on a plane, not about wearing 24/7. Nobody asked for that so don't straw man it.

In some Asian countries it was already common courtesy to wear a mask if you even suspect you might have a respiratory disease before Covid. Saying everyone suspecting a respiratory disease should stay at home is fine but detached from reality, people need to go places.

Ergo, wearing a mask in closed spaces is a compromise between being grounded and being an a** h***.

Edit:

About this

> I do contribute to the wellbeing of the 95+% of the people who choose not to wear a mask and want to engage in human connection with the full range of emotional and facial expressiveness we were blessed with for that purpose

What exactly is the benefit strangers in a closed space (like public transportation) get from seeing your facial expressions? What kind of human connection do you expect with strangers on public transportation? Believing the viewing of your face to be to the benefit of the public is narcissism unlike any other.

That's a lot of words, all utterly self-serving, for being a self-absorbed prick with a wildly inflated notion of how desirable your interaction is for random-ass strangers. Shove the 24 hour strawman where the sun doesn't shine, we're talking about not being an ass in enclosed spaces solely because you're too delicate to handle even the most basic respiratory PPE for any length of time.

Right! And if you can have covid and not put on a mask, why the fuck can't I smoke next to you on a plane?

Because regulating microscopic airborne diseases is impossible and beyond dumb. Every country that tried to do so failed to do so, even with the most Draconian laws imaginable.

Sure. But how is that any different from regulating the burning of leaves?

Covid doesn't crash planes.

Smoking can.

It’s amazing how backwards you got things there. The mental gymnastics you went through! Do you really think the air was cleaner in planes when people smoked in them? And you think children coughing is worse than smoking? Jesus. By the way, I hope you know there are Covid vaccines now, but I hesitate to ask your opinion on them.

The person you are replying to suggests that covid is higher risk for a 3 hour exposure than second hand smoke, which is the correct risk analysis. Only a covid-denier would suggest differently.

Gosh, it's wonderful to hear anyone besides my clients tell me my risk analysis was correct. We're living in a crazy world, where opinions are cheap. Between what's said online and what's officially declared, you have to be your own man handler and keep your own counsel. On the occasion someone else in this mad world tells you that your analysis is fundamentally logical, you should thank them. So thank you.

The person also presumes coughing = covid… when in planes the air is dry and coughing is somewhat normal.

I really relish the type of high-and-mighty attitude of folks who bring their children coughing onto an airplane and then have the gall to tell you you shouldn't smoke. That's quite precious. Let's just say we're all allowed to pollute each other's airspace. Hasn't the person with a child on their lap gone further in polluting our entire world with their offspring? That child is taking up twice the oxygen and twice the resources left on the planet. The idea that someone who has a child (or three) should lecture someone who doesn't about what particles they put out in the air is the height of hypocrisy. You don't automatically win the war for the common air because you spawned.

Your inference from the data is flawed. They changed the filters more often because they clogged more often. Filters clog up and reduce their airflow over time, they don't allow more particles through over time. So the air was 3x dirtier.

The ashtrays are still in many seats

They're still in airplane bathrooms[1] but only to prevent people who are already about to be arrested from starting fires in the toilet.

[1] https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2012-08-14/airplane-bathr...

Nicotine pouches/gum (or chewing tobacco but can’t recommend it) are all great alternatives for smoking while traveling.

Once at a Farnborough air show many years back there was a display from an aircraft maintenance company with small sections of the skin of old airliners. On those if there was a small imperfection of the metal skin or the seal to the window or a door you could actually see a brown smear of nicotine on the white painted skin. It allowed ground staff to spot problems at an early stage.

Those kids are going to be coughing on you regardless of whether smoking is allowed or not.

If you were allowed to smoke on the plane then I should also be allowed to bring aboard my bucket of rotten fish.