‘A Danger To Millions Of Travelers’: Health Groups Blast Detroit Airport’s Planned Cigar Lounge

Detroit airport is planning to add a cigar lounge, and anti-smoking groups are freaking out, claiming it “would expose millions of travelers and airport employees to harmful secondhand smoke.”

There’s been a campaign against the effort over the past year, since it was first introduced, by groups including the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Detroit Wayne Oakland Tobacco-Free Coalition, Parents Against Vaping e-Cigarettes (PAVe), and Tobacco Free Michigan.

Now commissioners from Wayne County, Michigan – where Detroit airport is location – along with several members of the Michigan House of Representatives have lined up in opposition and are demanding the airport halt the plan.

Last week, the Wayne County Commission passed a resolution formally opposing the cigar lounge proposal, citing concerns about the potential rollback of Michigan’s long-standing smoke-free air protections and the health risks associated with secondhand smoke.

…However, the [airport authority] has defended its process, stating that the idea emerged from “interest from the community and local businesses,” particularly given DTW’s role as an international travel hub.

A key talking point against the smoking lounge is that “No community group, employee organization, or public health expert has asked for a cigar lounge.” Indeed, one poll finds that “77 percent of Michigan voters oppose adding a cigar lounge at DTW.”

I’m not sure that matters, or that it’s the correct standard. There are passengers who want it, even if most passengers don’t (most passengers don’t want valet parking or USO lounges, either).

Naturally, the CDC prefers no smoking at all,

[S]moke-free policies that completely eliminate smoking inside airports are the only way to fully protect nonsmoking employees and travelers from [secondhand smoke] exposure.

I am not a smoker. Maybe 25 years ago I’d occasionally have a cigarette at parties. I can count the number of cigars I’ve had on one hand, and those were largely Cubans I may or may not have brought back to the United States for the novelty.

But I’d note that there are other U.S. airports with smoking areas, like Miami, Las Vegas, and Nashville. Travel to Europe and they’re much more common. Frankfurt has several smoking lounges throughout the airport equipped with special ventilation systems. Munich, Vienna, Zurich, and Rome offer smoking as well. You’ll find smoking areas throughout Tokyo Haneda, Singapore Changi, Seoul and Hong Kong, too, to name just a few.

And these include are some of the world’s best airports! Modern smoking lounges have proper containment and ventilation, so you wouldn’t know from outside the space that smoking was going on inside.

You’ll even find a cigar lounge in Lufthansa’s First class terminal, just inside the entrance down the hall on the right.

Emirates doesn’t just have smoking lounges throughout the Dubai airport, but there’s even a cigar bar in the A concourse first class lounge. If not for the signage, you’d never know.

Here’s the modern approach to airport smoking spaces:

• Negative Air Pressure: Smoking lounges are designed to maintain a lower air pressure compared to surrounding areas. This ensures that air flows into the lounge rather than out, keeping smoke contained.

• HEPA air filtration: Air extracted from smoking lounges is passed through HEPA filters to remove particulate matter, including smoke particles.

• Carbon Filtration: Activated carbon filters absorb odors and harmful chemicals, such as benzene and formaldehyde, to minimize their release.

• Direct Exhaust: Use of direct exhaust vents releases filtered air outside the airport building, bypassing shared air circulation systems.

• Frequent Air Exchanges: Air in smoking lounges is typically replaced every few minutes to dilute smoke concentration and maintain air quality.

To the extent these systems are properly set up and maintained, they work extremely well. Negative air pressure isolates the contents. HEPA filtration traps nearly all particulates. And passengers outside the space have limited exposure to the air in any case.

If there’s a reasonable concern it’s that Detroit airport might not maintain the systems as well as Tokyo Haneda. Put another way, there are American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers standards for indoor air quality that they should be adhering to. If you don’t believe they will, you would have concerns, but those concerns should be far broader than a cigar lounge.

In airports with modern systems like Frankfurt or Singapore – or ostensibly a new build in Detroit – the risk of secondhand smoke exposure is minimal. In older facilities, perhaps the Cairo airport terminal 3 smoking lounge down by the F gates, you might get leakage of odor and pollutants.

Thirteen years ago, a study promoted by cigar lounge opponents found that airport smoking areas contributed to higher levels of detectable particulate matter, however it concluded that “the difference between the average level in the nonsmoking areas of airports with designated smoking areas and the average level in smoke-free airports was not statistically significant.”

And in any case, cigars aren’t cigarettes; brand new systems are far more prophylactically effective than already-old systems measured more than a dozen years ago; and there’s not really a suggestion that higher measurable particulate matter poses any specific public health risk.

CDC argues that “There is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke.” That’s a sleight of hand game. There’s no risk-free flying, either, even though it’s far safer than driving! There’s no risk-free ownership of buckets. There are about 15 deaths annually attributed to buckets. “Risk-free” isn’t nearly as useful a concept as relative risk. Most of the food in airports and on board is unhealthy, and thus not risk free. The escalators at Detroit airport are riskier than this!

Travelers like a beer in the airport, marking the moment as you set off on an adventure or begin a journey. And some like a cigar, too. I think that’s ok?