Many couldn’t believe that the option was once available on flights
People have been left stunned after someone shared a photo of a couple of old boarding passes, and it’s a pretty good indicator of your age.
When we talk about flying nowadays, everything is pretty commonplace – nobody’s allowed in the cockpit, keep your seatbelts on when the light is illuminated, don’t smoke onboard for health and safety reasons, the usual stuff.
However, there was once a time when travelling by plane was very different, obviously it took longer to reach your location, engines were much louder, and there were even smoking and non-smoking areas onboard.
Flying is a lot more pleasant than it used to be (Getty Stock Image)
One user took to Reddit to share a picture of some old boarding passes that fell out of the front page of a secondhand book that they bought.
The passes were for a ‘non-smoking cabin’ on a plane heading from London Heathrow to Casablanca, Morocco.
The user added: “I’ve tried looking everywhere online to see any similar or to try to date them as I’m so intrigued as to how old they could be but had no luck finding anything!
“The non smoking cabin is making me think maybe pre 1980’s?!
“Any ideas anyone? Thanks! :).”
The simple question gained a lot of attention on the social media site, with numerous users not realising that smoking was once permitted on flights.
It’s easy to forget, smoking indoors in the UK was only banned in July 2007, not even 20 years ago.
Smoking is now prohibited on planes (Getty Stock Image)
But what about on planes?
Well, the pre-1980s shout wasn’t a bad one from the user, with the first airline in the world prohibiting smoking onboard being Aurigny Air Services, of Channel Island Guernsey in 1977.
Some people couldn’t believe that smoking was ever allowed on planes, as one commented: “It feels like an absolute mindf*ck that smoking was once normal and permitted on planes. And as recently as 2000!”
Someone else replied: “2000 was nearly a quarter of a century ago…”
A third claimed joked: “This is just plane wrong.”
Is anyone able to date these boarding passes?
byu/Hour-Work6565 inAskUK
Another user recalled a flight with Aeroflot in 1999 where the last four rows of the plane were apparently smoking. As soon as the light went off, they claimed passengers huddled in the back of the plane to light their cigarettes, leading to the pilot apparently faking turbulence to get them to sit down, after a number of announcements.
While Smoke Free flights started trials in 1990, British Airways banned smoking on all flights in 1998.
After doing some research Reddit users believed the owners of the boarding passes were flying with Air France.
The airline put an end to passengers lighting up on its planes in November 2000, following the European Union’s ban in 1997.
So these tickets must have been from the first 10 months of 2000 or earlier, when it was perfectly legal to light up 30,000 ft in the sky.
Featured Image Credit: Reddit / Getty Stock Image
