WASHINGTON -- A smoking ban on all domestic airline flights of two hours or less goes into effect at one minute past midnight Saturday, as supporters of the prohibition vowed to fight to extend it to all flights.
'We'll continue to seek a permanent ban,' said Rep. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a sponsor of the anti-smoking law passed by Congress last December. 'If it's sensible on two-hour flights, then it's sensible on longer flights.'
Under the new rules, passengers will be prohibited from lighting up on roughly 80 percent of all domestic flights.
Recalcitrant smokers caught with a lit cigarette face a $1,000 fine. If they tamper with the smoke detector in the plane's lavatory to sneak a smoke, the fine is $2,000.
Fines also apply to flights longer than two hours that the airline designates to be non-smoking.
Even if a flight that is scheduled to last two hours or less is delayed and runs over that time, smoking still is prohibited.
Violators also will be arrested by police when the plane lands, said A.B. Magary, executive vice president for Northwest Airlines, which has taken the ban a step further and forbidden smoking for passengers and crew on all its domestic flights.
'Our no-smoking flights are no-smoking flights,' said Red Tyler, spokesman for the airline. 'There will be no smoking in the cabin or cockpit. Pilots previously smoked at the discretion of the captain.'
'This is no different than any other unacceptable passenger disturbance,' Magary said. 'We are not the enforcement agency.'
The controversial ban was signed into law by President Reagan last December over the tobacco industry's objections. It will last for two years unless Congress renews it.
The ban represents the first time Congress has restricted smoking for public health reasons.
Tobacco lobbyists vow to work to repeal the law, though they will encourage smokers to obey the law.
'We continue to voice our opinion that this law is unwarranted, but it is in place and people need to be law-abiding,' said Brennan Moran, a spokeswoman for the Tobacco Institute, an industry trade group.
'The right to a smoke-free environment does not exist under the Constitution,' she added.
But proponents of the ban said they will not be satisfied until all aircraft are free of smoke.
'Smokers do have rights -- to speak, worship and vote, and other rights guaranteed under the Constitution. Where is the right to smoke in a public place written?' asked Ahron Leichtman, head of Citizens Against Tobacco Smoke.
If smokers need help surviving a two-hour flight, a group of anti-smoking organizations put out a pamphlet for smokers entitled 'How to Keep the Smoking Ban from Giving You Fits.'
The pamphlet points out that the ban is directed against smoke and not smokers and recommends they try keeping their hands busy, putting other objects in their mouths, brushing their teeth and other ploys if a nicotine fit hits.
'We hope that during these flights smokers will think seriously about quitting smoking,' said Scott Ballin, chairman of the Coalition on Smoking or Health.'
Meanwhile, other airlines are waiting to see how the public reacts to Northwest's total ban to see whether it hurts or helps business.
