A German entrepreneur has launched SMINTAIR, the world's first "all-smoking" airline, with nonstops from Dusseldorf to Tokyo. The airline website promises "bring back the exclusivity in flying encountered in the 1960s" — ah, you mean the exclusivity of oxygen in the cabin? Connoisseurs of second-hand smoke are encouraged to book flights too, because
Non-smokers will find the cabin air more refreshing than on any other flight with any other airline, as SMINTAIR adds fresh outside air to the conditioning system! This is more expensive, as it burns more fuel, but it is seen as an additional service to our guests.
Instead of free travel, frequent flyer miles earn you lung tumors.
Link to blog post, here's a BBC News item. (thanks better living through miles)
Reader comment: Brian Nicks says,
This is a hysterical claim on the part of SMINTAIR. All airlines add fresh outside air to the conditioning system (about 50% of what you breathe in an airliner is fresh outside air). Jet engines take bleed air to feed air conditioning packs that introduce the outside air to the cabin, continually replenishing the supply of air in the cabin. SMINTAIR is selling a feature that all airlines provide. From airlinesafety.com:
In flight, the packs are usually operated in "high flow" mode during ground operations, and the climb/descent portions of the flight. Recirculation fans are also running to enhance the velocity of the air in the cabin. When cruise altitude is reached, it is normal for the packs to change from high flow to "normal" flow. That means they pump air into the cabin at a somewhat lower volume (cubic feet per minute) than they do in the high flow mode. That is done to reduce wear and tear on the packs and to save fuel. The laws of physics require additional energy consumption to pump higher volumes of air. That requirement is even more pronounced with the newer energy efficient and environmental friendly engines of today:
"… most newer jetliners are powered by high-bypass-ratio fan engines which are much quieter, much cleaner burning, more powerful and much more efficient. At the front end of this engine type is a large-diameter fan, which is powered by the core. The fan moves a large volume of air past the core rather than through it, and actually generates most of the thrust. Every unit of pressurized air extracted from the engine core has the effect of reducing fan thrust by an even greater amount, and that degrades fuel efficiency more severely on this type of engine than on the older type. By providing the cabin with a mixture of about 50 percent outside air taken from the compressor and 50 percent recirculated air, a balance has been achieved that maintains a high level of cabin air quality, good fuel efficiency and less impact to our environment." [Excerpt from Boeing consumer news. For the entire document, and more, click here: Boeing. See also, Facts and Myths]
Michael Davies says,
I notice that Brian Nicks misinterpreted the facts on the airlinesafety.com website. They state that the recirculation systems mix outside air with about 50% recirculated air. This is very different from saying that the air in the plane is 50% fresh air.
There is a key measure of how well air-conditioning units refresh the air in an enclosed space: volume of fresh air per person per unit time.
Boeing has a very well-researched paper available as a pdf (Link) that mentions that in planes 20 cubic feet per minute (cfm) of air per passenger is provided, of which half
is filtered recirculated air and half is outside air, thus providing 10cfm per person of fresh air. This appears to be broadly in line with best practice, eg ASHRAE recommendations for the comfort of residents of an office building.
Mark Horridge says,
With newer air engines (and higher fuel prices), the cost of providing fresh air to passengers has increased — and now passengers get less fresh air than before. This would have been difficult to do if smoking had not been banned on planes.
Some estimate that to provide passengers with 100% fresh (rather than recyced air could add 12 cents per passsenger per hour to ticket cost). It may be that SMINTAIR is making this choice. If so, passengers will enjoy more oxygen and less CO2 in the cabin air, as well as more tobacco fumes.
