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Old Jan 6, 2012 | 9:06 am
  #68  
johnnie69
10 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: London
Programs: BA Silver, I'm back!
Posts: 657
Originally Posted by lady1964
I'm old enough to remember when passengers could smoke on flights without any problems, in fact, just over 20 years ago on a flight from Hong Kong to LHR, we stopped in Bahrain to disgorge/collect new passengers and what should have been an hour, turned into 8 hours on the tarmac. The flight had originated in Perth so some people had been on the plane for 15 or so hours already. Not a worry for the smokers, we just lit up.

So now you know, I'm a smoker of around 15 a day and it is a struggle initially once I'm airside but my mind tells me I can't smoke so it isn't a massive problem. Although, to be fair, if I was mid flight, or in the lounge & I was able to smoke, then I would but I can't so I don't. I did struggle when in the lounge on Wednesday though, so I nipped out to Boots & bought some Nicorette chewing gum to ease the pangs and it worked. I probably chewed my way through 3 all told, over a 9:45 flight + the lounge time of around 2 or so hours, I'm impressed with myself.*

I'm sort of understanding where the passenger is coming from, purely from a fellow smoker's point of view, but on the other hand, there are aids to ease cravings so buy them, they aren't expensive, I paid £4.99 for my pack of gum, hardly expensive and had the passenger on this flight bought some, it might just have seen him/her through. BTW, where is PUJ? What sort of flight time are we talking about here?

*I know smoking is a filthy habit and when I am ready to stop, I'll stop but I'm not there yet and like T1891 (apologies if I've got that wrong, I'm jet-lagged), I like to think I'm pretty considerate of non smokers when outside.
They had to land in the Azores which I am guessing is around 4 hours from LGW? Not sure how far into flight it all kicked off or whether they had to turn back to the Azores or if it happened before they got that far.
As a smoker myself I know I wouldn't try and get onto the flight deck because of any cravings. As you say when you can't smoke you can't so we deal with it. Feels good when priority bags work and immigration queues are short after 9 hours + so one can light up asap . I will give up this year though!
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