Smokefree Skies Anniversary
On February 25, 1990, the “no-smoking” sign was permanently
lit on U.S. domestic airline flights. Thanks to the hard work of flight attendants,
ANR members, health supporters, and key lawmakers, U.S. airline employees and
passengers have been breathing smokefree air for the past 15 years. This effort
was preceded by a CA law sponsored by then Senator
Nicholas (Nick) Petris. The law was the first to eliminate smoking on all forms
of transit in the state of CA including airplanes, trains, and buses. To learn
more about these historic events, read our Flying
the Smokefree Skies Milestones or the more detailed Smokefree
Transportation Chronology.
ANR presented CA Senator Petris with its Smokefree Hero Award for his sponsorship
of the landmark smokefree transportation legislation.
Former flight attendants describe the horror of working on smoke-filled airplanes in the two video clips below. Some of the video clips may take a while to download, but the powerful message they contain is worth the wait.
Danger
is in the Air: The Kathie Cheney Story (Running time: 9:22)
In this compelling video produced by the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention,
former flight attendant Kathie Cheney describes her experience on smoke-filled
flights, her diagnosis with "smokers' throat" and subsequent surgery.
Also, former HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan, MD describes the negative health
effects of secondhand smoke.
Windows Media High Resolution
(17MB)
Windows Media Low Resolution
(6 MB)
Patty
Young Video Clip (Running time: 3:23)
Patty Young, former flight attendant, describes what it is like to work in a
smoke-filled airplane in this video clip from the late 1980's during the fight
for smokefree skies. (Clip provided by The Center for the Study of Tobacco and
Society).
Window Media High Resolution
(8 MB),
Windows Media Player Low Resolution
(6 MB),
Please join ANR in commemorating this historic health victory!
Sign ANR's Smokefree Skies Memory Book to share your memories about what it used to be like to have smoking on airplanes.
Remember the way it was?
Remember
having a row of seats separating the smoking section from the nonsmoking section
in-flight? Remember the sick flight attendants, the wafting smoke, asthma attacks
and dirty ashtrays? Remember the vicious tobacco industry campaign to prevent
and to repeal the smokefree airlines law?
Opponents said smokefree flights would never happen. Well, they did, and smokefree skies have been a historic success for public health and for the smokefree movement.
One mark of the success is that most people now take smokefree flights for
granted, forgetting what a difficult, controversial fight this was for public
health.
In the 1980s, ANR staff Mark Pertschuk and Julia Carol met with Norman Mineta to discuss proposals for smokefree airline flights. Mr. Mineta was then the Chair of the House Subcommittee on Aviation and is now the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.
Some images courtesy of the University of Alabama, Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.
Big Tobacco Fights Smokefree Skies
In
1988, the Tobacco Institute's "Smokers' Rights Alliance" launched
a letter writing campaign to Congress and the Federal Aviation Administration,
in an effort to block the adoption of smokefree flight policies.
The campaign failed.
Here
is a draft of an advertisement that RJ Reynolds
ran against Northwest Airlines after the airline went voluntarily smokefree.
Cynthia
Hallett, Executive Director of ANR, presented Senators Richard Durbin and Frank
Lautenberg (not shown) with ANR's Smokefree Hero Award for their pioneering
efforts and leadership in support of smokefree airlines legislation. (May 4,
2005)
Patty
Young (former flight attendant and leader in the smokefree skies movement with
ANR), Elizabeth Kress (Executive Director of the Flight Attendants Medical Research
Institute), Cynthia Hallett (Executive Director of ANR), and Mark Pertschuk
(President of ANR Board of Directors) at ANR's 15th Anniversary of Smokefree
Skies event in Chicago, IL, May 5, 2005.