When all airplane flights STUNK. Literally.
I think we have flight attendants to thank for cleaner indoor air in many places today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/business/what-airlines-were-like-before-the-smoke-cleared.html?smid=fb-share
Tracy Sear, a flight attendant with US Airways, was looking over some Facebook posts from colleagues recalling those bad old days when a third or more of passengers on any flight puffed away, and cabins were foul with smoke. When I spoke with her the other day, she read one of those posts to me: “Suitcases, uniforms, hair — all stunk from cigarette smoke. And it’s astounding that we didn’t have more cabin fires.”
It’s probably difficult for anyone who isn’t middle-aged or older to comprehend, but people could smoke cigarettes on airplanes until Feb. 25, 1990. That’s when the federal government, after years of pressure from a union, the Association of Flight Attendants, finally banned smoking on all but a handful of domestic flights over six hours in duration. Ten years later, smoking was prohibited on flights between the United States and foreign destinations. Today, virtually every commercial flight in the world is smoke-free.
Ms. Sear’s first flying job was as a flight attendant from 1968 to 1979 with Pacific Southwest Airlines, which merged into a predecessor of US Airways in the late 1980s. PSA, as it was known, marketed itself as the “World’s Friendliest Airline” and outfitted its stewardesses (as they were then called) in miniskirts and go-go boots during the late 1960s.
“Then we transitioned from wool skirts to polyester hot pants, which added a whole new dimension to the smoking issue,” she said, explaining: “Passengers would have their elbows on the armrest and then plop their hand out into the aisle with a lighted cigarette in it. So we would have to try to dodge it. In a wool dress, it was less of an issue because you could brush off the ash, but when PSA went to polyester hot pants you’d often get a cigarette burn hole on your pantyhose, and you were lucky not to get a more severe burn on your leg.”
SNIP
= new reply since forum marked as read
That made me laugh. 
