Opinion ID: 414311
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ban on smoking on small aircraft

Text: 35 EDR-377 also proposed a rule to ban all smoking on aircraft with thirty seats or less. The rationale for such a ban is that segregation of smokers on a small plane is not feasible and that small planes are generally used for short flights in which a ban would be less objectionable to smokers. The Board received considerable comments on that proposal, including favorable comments by two airlines that had instituted such a ban on their own initiative. 56 36 Nevertheless, the Board offered no reasons for its rejection of the proposal. Instead, its discussion focused on the need to resolve the unequal application of the smoking regulations as between certificated air carriers and commuters. Prior to ER-1245, smoking regulations applied to all certificated air carriers, but only to commuter air carriers in the operation of aircraft of over thirty seats. The Airline Deregulation Act blurred the distinction between those two types of operators, making the disparate treatment seem unfair. To equalize the regulatory burden on commuters and certificated air carriers, the Board exempted all aircraft with fewer than thirty seats from the smoking regulations. 37 Thus, the Board explained why commuters and certificated air carriers should be regulated similarly. It offered no reasons, however, for why the regulations should not include a total ban on smoking in small aircraft. Such a ban would avoid the difficulties of segregating smokers on a small plane, which were presumably the basis for the original decision not to regulate smoking on commuter flights. It is certainly not obvious on its face, therefore, why such a ban would create the sort of complicated regulatory burden that the Board seeks to eliminate.