smoking on airplanes

Travel Tidbits: e-cigs, Cuba & mascots

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Lucky Stirke smoking

The U.S. Department of Transportation has finalized a rule related to smoking on airplanes and now the use of electronic cigarettes on commercial flights is officially forbidden.

According to DOT: “The final rule applies to all scheduled flights of U.S. and foreign carriers involving transportation in, to, and from the U.S.”

havana

Many U.S. airlines – including Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest and United – filed applications this week for regularly scheduled flights to Havana and other airports in Cuba. 110 daily flights will be approved, so stay tuned and start planning your trip now.

Frontier mascot

And, Frontier Airlines is running a contest to pick a school mascot to be featured on one of its new Airbus 320 airplanes.

The winning mascot’s organization will win 20 roundtrip tickets and every time you vote you get entered in a contest to win a free flight.

Worried about the 787 and the one-butt ashtray

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Boeing, the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), airlines and all manner of interested parties are worried about the fate of the 787 Dreamliner.

And I am too.  For all the reasons everyone else wants all the problems to be resolved but also because I’m worried about the fate of the one-butt ashtray.

LAN 787 lav

While smoking is prohibited on airplanes, there are still some knuckleheads who will go into an airplane bathroom and light up. And in an effort to keep these smoking scofflaws from disposing of a lit or still smoldering cigarette in a trash bin filled with paper towels, there are regulations in place requiring that there be ashtrays in airplane lavatories and other spots.

On most airplanes, you’ll spot the square metal ashtrays many of us are familiar with from the old days when there were ashtrays in every airplane armrest.

But for the 787 some smart designer has come up with a charming and elegant little ashtray that works just like a flip out coat hook and will hold no more than a single cigarette butt.

So for that reason, I say “Save the 787.” It may save some butts.