In another incident of a passenger causing inconvenience midflight, a person was found smoking inside the toilet of a Delhi-bound Air India plane. Despite all the warnings given by flight attendants and signs displayed inside lavatories, some passengers still manage to light a cigarette only to get caught and be handed over to authorities.

Lighting up in the lavatory

Disruptive passenger behavior in Indian airlines continues, with the latest example involving a person trying his luck by sneaking inside an aircraft lavatory and lighting a cigarette. According to a Times Now report, the incident occurred on March 4th on an Air India flight.

The aircraft, an Airbus A321, was performing flight AI 763, a daily scheduled service between Kolkata and New Delhi. Investigation revealed that the passenger in question went inside the aircraft toilet with a cigarette and matchstick.

Soon, the smell of the smoke spread out from the lavatory, setting off an alarm and alerting the crew to the situation. The air traffic control in Delhi was informed of the incident, and the passenger was handed over to the police after landing. He informed the authorities that he was a chain smoker.

Not the first time

The latest incident comes less than two months after a 62-year-old man was found smoking inside the lavatory of a SpiceJet plane. He, too, was handed over to the police and later let off on bail.

But such incidents aren’t unique to India. In December 2022, a video on Twitter showed a passenger lighting a cigarette on an American Airlines flight. The cabin crew responded appropriately by extinguishing the cigarette, with the airline praising the action of its employees by stating,

“Smoking and the use of e-cigarettes are prohibited by law and not allowed on any American Airlines flight. We thank our team member for their swift action in addressing the issue.”

In 2019, an Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco to Philadelphia had to divert to Chicago after a passenger attempted to smoke in-flight. When the flight attendant instructed him to extinguish it, the passenger reportedly became angry and attempted to light it again. Finally, he had to be escorted off the aircraft by police upon landing.

While it seems unthinkable for anyone to smoke openly in an aircraft today, back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to see aircraft cabins filled with secondhand smoke when it was still legal to smoke midflight.

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The effort to ban smoking was gradual, and a critical landmark decision came in 1990 when smoking was banned on US domestic flights of less than six hours. Gradually, over the next few years, smoking was prohibited internationally to reach the point where we are today.

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Source: Times Now