A German businessman has started an airline dedicated to smokers. The first route will be between Düsseldorf-International and Tokyo’s Narita airport in March 2007.
Smintair
, or “Smokers’ International Airways,” is looking to specifically cater for smoking passengers, particularly Japanese and Asian businessmen.

The founder, Alexander Schoppmann, according to media reports, is himself a 30-a-day man and a former stockbroker and is aiming to bring back to bring back “the exclusivity in flying encountered in the 1960s.”

“It disturbs me that I pay a lot of money for a ticket only to be told what I can and cannot do,” he told the Calgary Herald.

“There are no laws banning smoking on board. The airlines have simply made these rules themselves because no-smoking planes are simply cheaper.”

Two leased Boeing 747s will be used on the route and will be equipped with an air conditioning system that adds fresh outside air to the cabin.

This is more expensive, as it burns more fuel, but it is seen as an additional service to both smokers and non-smokers alike.

The airline will offer only 30 first class and 108 business class seats, smoking will be allowed in all seats of course.

Schoppmann on Smintair’s website is nostalgic for that time when “you were greeted with a vast selection of “Montechristo cigars, in Lufthansa’s First Class, even before the plane took off.”
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