That's interesting news to me. I did wonder why smoking paraphernalia continued to appear in planes that were covered in anti-smoking insignia. I always assumed that the bathrooms, seat etc were made in large quantities, and that there are a lot of countries in the world where you can still light up in a flight, not to mention privately owned planes.

I once flew on a Japan Air Lines flight back in the '90s. At that stage they still had the back 6 rows or something as smoking seats. The girl who assigned my seat at check in didn't realise this and allocated me there. I just sat there and took it for 8 hours - nowadays I would have loudly demanded an upgrade out of there - but I was somewhat meek in accepting my fate. The lady next to me had just been to bury a relative in a car crash and was on the way back home. She must have drank half a bottle of whisky and smoked two packets of cigarettes. When I arrived I smelt like a tobacco spitoon and felt as though I had sand rubbed in my eyes.

Allowing smoking on planes was and is a terrible idea. The fire risk alone should immediately discount it.