Press Releases

Celebrating 15 Years of Smokefree Skies on February 25th

For Immediate Release
February 21, 2005
Contact: Amy Ferguson
504-299-7175

Alexandria, February 21, 2005 Smoke-free air supporters in Central Louisiana are preparing to celebrate the landmark federal law that permanently lit the no-smoking sign on Americas airplanes 15 years ago, in 1990.

Since 1990, we have all enjoyed the comfort and protection from toxic secondhand smoke that now exists on all airlines that fly within, into, and out of the United States, says Monette Fontenot, Alexandria area regional coordinator for the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco Free Living. Delta Airlines, whose early history is linked to Louisiana, was the first to make the entire carrier smoke-free. This 15-year anniversary is positive proof that smoke-free air is important to the majority of business customers and workers in Louisiana. Most people want to patronize and work in smoke-free businesses.

The transportation law, fiercely contested by the tobacco companies, was spurred by the demands of flight attendants for a smoke-free workplace.

The smoke was killing us, said Lani Blissard, a former flight attendant for American Airlines. Like all workers, we deserved protection from secondhand smoke.

Flight attendants began seeking in-flight protection from secondhand smoke exposure in the 1960s. In 1987, the effort for smoke-free flights gained momentum when California adopted an interstate smoke-free flights law and with President Ronald Reagan signing a federal law, sponsored by Representative Richard Durbin (D-IL), which prohibited smoking on flights of less than two hours. The law was initially designed to sunset after two years, due to tobacco industry opposition.

In 1989, under mounting scientific evidence of the health risks of secondhand smoke, Congress strengthened and approved the law, extending the smoke-free rule to domestic flights of six hours, which covered almost every flight route in the country. The law for smokefree domestic flights went into effect on February 25, 1990. In 1994, Delta Airlines became the first to implement a carrier-wide smoking ban.

Executive Director Cynthia Hallett of Americans for Nonsmokers Rights, a non-profit group that helped lead the effort to get the law passed in Congress, said, Smokefree flights are popular and are now taken for granted by airline passengers. Most forget the bitter battle waged by Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds to undermine this public health protection.

Its ironic that we have had smokefree workplaces in the sky for 15 years, but most Americans still do not have the same protection on the ground. Everyone deserves a workplace free from the harmful toxins of secondhand tobacco smoke, said Tom Houston, MD, Director of the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco Free Living.