A significant proportion of incidents on board aircraft are associated with smoking. A complete ban on cigarettes, including electronic (paper), was introduced on all Aeroflot flights from March 31, 2002. The status of the non-smoking airline is enshrined in the internal Rules for the carriage of passengers and baggage by air. The company believes that the image of a modern air carrier, whose activities meet international standards, involves ensuring the right of passengers and crew members to comfortable flight conditions, including clean air. Smoking on board not only harms the health of other passengers and is a violation of current legislation, but also creates a threat to flight safety. Statistics show that the number of incidents of this type is decreasing. If in 2016 1525 facts of smoking on board Aeroflot planes were fixed, then for 8 months of 2017 - 411 incidents. And four passengers were refused return transportation according to clause 1. 6 Article 107 of the VK RF (for the threat of flight safety). "Victory" - a budget airline, part of the Aeroflot Group, - toughened measures to combat smoking on board. If an intruder is found, the aircraft lands at the nearest airport, a passenger who has lit a passenger is removed from the flight by police officers. With him through the court recovered costs incurred by the company due to forced landing. So, on July 21, 2017, the plane that carried out the flight on the route Makhachkala - St. Petersburg, made an emergency landing at the Moscow airport Vnukovo to remove from the flight a passenger who was smoking on board. The intruder was transferred to the employees of the LOVD of the airport. "Victory" intends to recover from the offender all the costs incurred by the airline because of the forced landing in Moscow. Aeroflot considers it appropriate to toughen the position given that smoking is a form of behavior that is unacceptable on board an aircraft. At the initiative of the company, in April 2017, amendments were made to Article 216 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which introduced criminal liability for hooligans in transport. In July, the State Duma in the first reading adopted amendments to the Civil and Air Codes of the Russian Federation, which will give the right to airlines to introduce passengers-violators into "black lists" with the right to refuse transportation. In addition, Aeroflot is improving the mechanism for transferring violators to law enforcement agencies for bringing to administrative responsibility. In the world practice, the ban on smoking on board the aircraft is widespread. The airlines that have introduced a complete ban on smoking on board the aircraft include Air Canada, Air France, Delta, Emirates, Finnair, Lufthansa and many others.

Foreign courts have repeatedly pronounced decisions on involving passengers who smoke on board - to the criminal. For example, in January 2017, the Royal Court of Birmingham (United Kingdom) convicted a Monarch airline passenger John Cox, who was smoking on board an aircraft flying to Sharm El Sheikh. Cox was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison for creating a security threat on board the aircraft. The Court of Appeal increased the sentence to 9 years and 6 months.

Original article: Aeroflot confirmed the inadmissibility of smoking on board an aircraft.