To Think….We Used to Smoke on Airplanes

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  • on December 26th, 2009

It seems like yesterday that my dad would get all hopped out about being in the last row before the smoking section, something many parents used to have to freak out about.

In 1980 on my first trip to Israel, I could not wait to sit in the smoking section for 13 hours to be cool?

In 1999, my buddy Tom and I were flying back from Amsterdam on a Northwest flight through Detroit and although smoking was illegal, it was Marlboro day on the plane.

The crew lost control of the flight. A group of 5-6 arab men started smoking at the front of the plane.

The pilots came out and tried but to no avail. These guys just wanted to smoke cigarettes.

I am not one for conflict, but if Tom is one of your buddies, you drop the gloves and fight first and ask questions later. It was weird to watch all this go on, but we were more afraid of the consequences to us of starting in at the time. Times have sure changed.

Just 10 years later and Tom and I could rope the same guys up and the passengers treat them like a pinata. CNN would treat us like heroes and I could have 120,000 followers on Twitter. When Tom and I think back, we feel lucky that these guys only had smoking on their mind.

It’s really just time that flying is more looked at as a priviledge and we outsource security to Israel like we do software to Wipro $wit and Infosys $infy

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