Truck and Barter

It’s about time you had an airline for smokers;

“With a growing number of countries choosing to ban smoking in public places, it is an idea that might seem inopportune. But Mr. Schoppmann, a German entrepreneur, is hoping to take advantage of smokers’ resentment at efforts to further curb where they can smoke by giving them their own airline, Smoker’s International Airways.

As the name suggests, the airline, known as Smintair, will probably not be for the faint of lung. The carrier, expected to begin luxury service with business and first-class seats early next year, plans daily flights between Mr. Schoppmann’s hometown of Düsseldorf and Tokyo — a 12-hour journey that, for some smokers, is simply not worth the nicotine-withdrawal headache.

“Many people simply don’t travel long distances anymore because they can’t smoke,” said Mr. Schoppmann, 55, who smokes 30 cigarettes a day in addition to the occasional cigar. “That has to be why they invented videoconferencing.”…

According to the International Air Transport Association, more than a million passengers traveled between Japan and Germany in 2004, a figure that is expected to increase by an average of 3.6 percent a year through 2009. While the majority of Japanese visitors to Germany are tourists, fully half of Germans traveling to Japan are there on business.

What’s more, about one-quarter of Germans smoke, while in Japan, 49 percent of men and 14 percent of women do, according to government surveys…”

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One of the SMINTAIR Philosophies;

“Allowing our guests to smoke is one of the freedoms we are happily prepared to grant. Non-smokers will find the cabin air more refreshing than on any other flight with any other airline, as SMINTAIR adds fresh outside air to the conditioning system! This is more expensive, as it burns more fuel, but it is seen as an additional service to our guests.”