Passive Smoking on Commercial Airlines

Abstract

To the Editor. — While I agree that Passive Smoking on Commercial Airline Flights 1 provides good correlative data for environmental tobacco smoke on commercial jet aircraft, I do not agree that it represents a typical commercial flight as claimed. To make such an assertion, one would have to know the amount of outside air per passenger in absolute figures such as cubic feet per minute (percentage of recirculated air noted in the report is not sufficient), the time-weighted average of the number of cigarettes smoked, and the total number of passengers, none of which is provided. This information could then be correlated with airline system statistics to provide a representative picture. Each of these variables can have a marked effect on the levels of environmental tobacco smoke components and their resulting physiological effects. For example, the amount of outside air per passenger can vary sixfold with normal discretionary operation