Being a non-smoker, I for one am glad that smoking is no longer allowed by many airlines
. I am not against allowing people to smoke, on the contrary, smokers can puff on cigarettes to their lungs content for all I care. Just don't smoke where it affects me.
Here's an excerpt from the annual Reader's Awards section of the Dec2000/Jan2001 issue of Business Traveler Magazine which I thought was pretty humorous in that I don't think the Aeroflot individual understands that he is not bargaining from the position of strength:
(I would have posted a link to the article, but I couldn't find it on their site
)
For example, while the international community has long moved away from in-flight smoking for health, comfort and courtesy reasons, this past September Aeroflot officials met witht he U.S. State Department to lobby them to lift the American smoking ban of international flights. The head of the airline's legal department even threatened that if the smoking ban wasn't eliminated, Aeroflot would retaliate by demanding international carriers that transport Russian passengers provide Russian-speaking flight attendants-as mandated by Russian law.
I know this may be a very American-centric opinion, but if Aeroflot doesn't want to adhere to US law regarding smoking on flights to/from the US, then they could solve their dilema easily,
just don't fly to the US. From what I have read on these boards, I don't think many people in the international business traveler community would miss Aeroflot if they stopped flying to the US.