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The days of airplane cabins hazy with cigarette smoke are long gone, but a reminder of that era is still visible inside commercial jets.
Smoking has been banned on commercial flights in the United States for decades, but the Federal Aviation Administration is only just updating an outdated rule to reflect that reality. Starting on Tuesday, the illuminated overhead “No Smoking” sign no longer requires an off switch.
That obsolete requirement had become “time-consuming and burdensome” for airlines and airplane manufacturers to comply with, the F.A.A. said in a rule enacting the change. In February, for example, United Airlines was briefly unable to use a handful of new Airbus planes because the “No Smoking” signs on board couldn’t be shut off, causing the airline to delay a few flights. The issue was resolved after the F.A.A. granted United an exemption.
Dozens of such exemptions have allowed that requirement to live on while the agency focused on more pressing matters. But the long life of the mandate also reflects how entangled smoking once was with commercial flights, which began in the 1910s.
“The rise of aviation literally parallels the rise of the cigarette,” said Alan Blum, the director of the University of Alabama’s Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.
Pipes, cigars and chewing tobacco were once more popular than cigarettes, but that began to change in the early 20th century, according to Dr. Blum. During World War I, cigarettes were added to rations for American soldiers fighting abroad.
Cigarette companies also used the glamour of the blossoming airline industry to sell their products by featuring pilots and flight attendants in ads. Amelia Earhart, the famous aviator whose disappearance captivated the public, endorsed Lucky Strike cigarettes.
Smoking soon proliferated on the ground and in the air, said Shea Oakley, an aviation historian: “They even had smoking on board the Hindenburg,” he said, referring to the airship that incinerated spectacularly in 1937 over New Jersey.
By the middle of the 20th century, almost every airline allowed smoking, despite the fire hazard. Many distributed matchbooks and cigarettes. Ozark Airlines — a predecessor of American Airlines — offered Philip Morris cigarettes. United served Chesterfields.
The popularity of cigarettes peaked in the mid-1960s, with American adults each burning through thousands per year, on average. But attitudes began to shift after the Surgeon General in 1964 published a report on the dangers of smoking.
The anti-smoking movement slowly started to take hold. The fight would become particularly fierce on airplanes, where the consequences were impossible to avoid, as Patty Young discovered when she became a flight attendant for American in 1966.
“The first thing the other stewardesses said were things like ‘Patty you’re going to meet really interesting guys, you’ll go to beautiful places,’ and, ‘Patty, I’ve got the lungs of a smoker and I’ve never smoked,’” Ms. Young, 78, said in an interview.
Flight attendants dodged lit cigarettes dangling from the hands of passengers, she said. Uniforms had to be washed multiple times to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke. And nicotine stains yellowed cabin walls and seats. For many, the consequences of being exposed to secondhand smoke included cancer and other deadly diseases.
Change was slow. In 1973, the federal government required airlines to seat smokers and nonsmokers in separate sections, which did little to protect passengers. In 1988 the F.A.A. banned smoking on domestic flights of less than two hours. Two years later, it expanded the ban to flights under six hours, which covered most domestic routes.
It was around that time that Ms. Young, who has fought against smoking for decades, learned that a married pair of lawyers, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt, were prepared to sue tobacco companies if they could find flight attendants suffering from the effects of secondhand smoke.
She connected them to Norma Broin, who had lung cancer. In 1991, the Rosenblatts filed what is believed to be the nation’s first class-action suit against tobacco companies over exposure to secondhand smoke, on behalf of Ms. Broin, Ms. Young and other flight attendants.
The suit dragged on for years, but ended in 1997 when the tobacco industry agreed to pay out $300 million to fund the establishment of a research institute. It also agreed to support a federal smoking ban on international flights, which the F.A.A. passed in 2000, extending the ban from a decade earlier to permanently block smoking on any flight landing or departing from a U.S. airport.
Other countries took similar steps and, with few exceptions, smoking is now prohibited on almost every flight worldwide.
But the F.A.A. still believes that the “No Smoking” signs serve a purpose. In the rule that took effect on Tuesday, the agency said the signs “continue to be an effective reminder for the traveling public.”
Ms. Young said she couldn’t agree more, especially because of the widespread use of electronic smoking devices, like vaporizers and e-cigarettes.
“Those no smoking signs should be always, always, always on there,” she said. “People still try to smoke on the airplane.”
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