A passenger flying American Airlines from San Juan to Miami on Monday reportedly vaped from his middle seat in row 22, “He would take hits on his vape and thought no one could see the vape smoke coming out his nose and mouth.” He was wrong – it was noticed – and another passenger on board reports that the man was detained on arrival by police.
Don’t be this guy and vape
byu/Alternative-Box-7353 inamericanairlines
You can’t smoke on a plane. You can’t vape, either. The FAA has interpreted the prohibition on cigarette smoking to including vaping products, even though they’re quite different. According to the rulemaking,
The NPRM stated our position that the reasons supporting the statutory and regulatory ban on smoking also apply to a ban on e-cigarettes
That’s the case even though the FAA rule explicitly allows a passenger to emit vapor if it is from a “medically beneficial substance.” So it’s not about banning vapor. The regulation simply extends the ban on cigarettes to include e-cigarettes, which weren’t contemplated when the law against on board smoking was passed. While stare decisis was explicitly noted in the Supreme Court’s decision last week, if made now without the benefit of Chevron deference would the FAA be able to ban vaping without statutory authority?
Separately, the concern isn’t batteries, as some people mistakenly believe. Laptops, cell phones, tablets, and noise cancelling headphones are permitted. And airlines have procedures – and burn bags – for dealing with outlier issues inflight. But there’s a stigma against vaping, and other passengers might think vapers are smoking a cigarette even though they aren’t.
The first airline to create a nonsmoking section was United back in 1971. No U.S. airline fully banned smoking worldwide until Delta in 1994. U.S. airlines were still allowed to offer on board smoking up until 2000.
Yet planes still have ashtrays! You’ll usually find them in or near the lavatory, because customers may smoke even though it’s illegal to do so – and they need a place to put out their cigarettes. Without ashtrays they’d be most likely to put out their cigarettes in the lavatory trash.. and light the paper tossed away inside on fire.
One passenger who lit her cigarette inflight says police beat her after flight attendants spiked her drink. And in 2020 a passenger lit up a cigarette after refusing to wear a mask on board.
Before the pandemic another passenger downed 4 bottles of beer, vaped an e-cigarette, and punched a flight attendant all before his honeymoon. Another lit a cigarette, drank his own booze, and bit a flight attendant’s ear. While a man who burned himself with his own e-cigarette on board had the temerity to sue the airline.
I’ve been guilty of taking a few hits of my vape in the airplane bathroom before. I wager many others do this as well.
The chemical reaction inside a vape does not trigger the smoke detectors, at least in their current form. They measure small particles in the air and the electrical balance between positive and negative charges. That doesn’t happen with vape smoke. Now, if they are upgraded, well that might suck for me.
But don’t do it in your seat. Try to be at least a little respectful, people. 🙂
@Mike
“But don’t do it in your seat. Try to be at least a little respectful, people.”
How about don’t do it, at all? The regulations exist for a reason, and one of them is that the rest of us don’t want to have to smell or be exposed to another person’s exhaust. I’m sorry if a vaper is essentially a drug addict who simply must have their hit, but that isn’t my problem, and I shouldn’t have to smell it or be exposed to it, whatever is in the vape.
Interesting how there are discrepancies in the rules about any smoking whatsoever in aircrafts at all. If by some chance if there is no sayings about vaping on aircrafts at all,then airline companies should NOT be able to enforce this stuff at all because then they would be in violation and it would then come back to butt them in the ass. My advice to them would be to sit down and Shut up about it
FACT: Second hand vaping emissions are, AT LEAST, as bad as second hand cigarette smoke.
https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/e-cigarettes-vaping/impact-of-e-cigarettes-on-lung#:~:text=E%2Dcigarettes%20produce%20a%20number,as%20cardiovascular%20(heart)%20disease.&text=E%2Dcigarettes%20also%20contain%20acrolein,primarily%20used%20to%20kill%20weeds.
If it’s against the rules don’t do it. There’s a lot about air travel I hate. The TSA security theatre, the chaotic and often moronic boarding process, etc. but I either abide or stay home. Suggest you do same.
How about don’t snitch.. was it bothering you?
@Hal “How about don’t snitch.. was it bothering you?” Agreed, I will not report someone scamming your parents/grandparents of their life savings. “No officer, I didn’t see the guy who mugged Hal,” as I delete the picture of the mugger from my phone.
I’m perfectly fine with people who cannot go on a flight without vaping to be put on a list that does not allow them on airplanes for a set number of years. On the other hand, maybe there should be more smoking rooms in airports so that they can get their fix before boarding and almost immediately after exiting the airplane. Other possibilities include nicotine patches, nicotine gum and nicotine lozenge to counter nicotine cravings that don’t include second hand smoke or second hand vapor. Maybe some of those should be available for purchase onboard. With the other options, those who vape on board don’t care about regulations or others around them having to deal with their exhaust.
@Bob Moran: All regulations exist for a reason, but sometimes that reason is simply regulatory inertia. How long did we unnecessarily continue banning cell phone use on planes?