Air travel has considerably changed over the years. There was a time when smoking on an aircraft was as common as ordering a drink. "Smoking or non-smoking" was the question asked of travellers when booking a seat on an airplane. However, as the science of smoking became more clear, airlines and governments took action and banned what was once freely acceptable activity on an aircraft. Recently, people have been left stunned after a social media user shared a photo of a couple of old boarding passes, which were valid for a "non-smoking cabin".
In a Reddit post shared to the "r/AskUK" subreddit, the user shared the picture of the 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. "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 user wrote in the caption of the post.
Take a look below:
Is anyone able to date these boarding passes?
byu/Hour-Work6565 inAskUK
"The non smoking cabin is making me think maybe pre 1980's?! Any ideas anyone? Thanks!" the user asked.
This simple question gained a lot of attention on social media, with many not realising that smoking was once permitted on flights.
"It feels like an absolute mindf**k that smoking was once normal and permitted on planes. And as recently as 2000!" wrote one user.
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Another user explained that it must have been between 1955 and 2009 because the tickets were for Heathrow's T2 and Air France doesn't use the new T2. To further narrow it down, they went on to mention that AFSL is Air France Services Limited, which was formed in 1996 and disbanded in 2009. The person further revealed that Air France banned smoking in 2000, so ticket may belong to somewhere between 1996 and 2000.
"However... I recall buying air tickets that said "non-smoking" on them long after smoking was banned. The whole plane was essentially a non-smoking section and they just didn't update their ticketing system for a long time, so that may not be that useful," the user said. However, he added that if they had to estimate based only on the design, they would have chosen the 1990s.
