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Couple hundred years ago, when we had smoking sections in airplanes, it was a fun place to be. We would have a couple of drinks, meet our seat mates, talk, socialize and smoke. I remember a non-smoker who couldn't get a seat up forward, and had settled for a smoking seat say "Wow, I didn't know it was so much fun in the smoking section". We were rowdy, and the flight attendants didn't seem to mind. The non smokers thought they could improve on a system like that.

SOOOOOOOOO TRUE!

The last enjoyable flight I had was one of the last smoking flights between Sydney and LA at Christmas 1994. By then there were only six rows at the back of economy for smokers, and those of us who got those seats got them five hours before the flight departed.

In the Christmas spirit, we shared our smoking seats with the other half of the 747 who smoked. This meant that at any given time, there were 20 or so people standing at the rear of the aircraft. The sh*tty young United hostie chucked a wobbly, and the senior hostie (from the fine age of flying) finally moved her to the forward cabin and let us continue.

Since that time, flying has become more like a Greyhound bus with wings. Screaming babies, stinky people, and mad Arabs.