Originally Posted by
Platcomike
Of all the good and the bad, smoking is definitely the worst thing (safety issued excepted) I remember. You just could not avoid it and usually the smell stayed with you after you got off.
Back in 1982, I flew LH in 'Baron Class' from MEX to DFW. It was a 747, in which the smoking section extended down the entire left side of the plane and non-smoking extended down the entire right side. So you could be sitting in the middle set of seats in non-smoking and be right next to someone lighting up in the smoking section.
When I wrote a complaint letter, LH promptly and politely responded that they had divided the plane this way in order to be 'fair' to both smokers and non-smokers! Some people like to sit toward the front, some toward the back, etc., and this gave everybody equal opportunity to pick their favorite section of the aircraft.
Now that I think about it they had a point. Once somebody lit up on the plane, it didn't matter is you were sitting next to them or 30 rows ahead. You were still breathing the same air!