Smoking on board of a Private Jet
In general, all charter flights are sold as non smoking flights.
Owners, of course, can do whatever they like, because they own the aircraft.
What would you do if your customer wants to smoke on board? Well, Business Aviation has different rules when it comes to smoking on board compare to Commercial Aviation. But this doesn’t mean you can smoke anytime, anywhere.
Some Operators are 100% smoking free, and nobody is allowed to smoke. If they do, they will be listed on a sort of black list of non-welcomed customers.
Some other Operators do allow that, but they will charge some extra money for a deep cleaning after arrival.
The cost of the deep cleaning variates according to the size of the aircraft and the airport (London is more expensive than Birmingham, for example). It can go from 500€ to 1.000€ or even more, in case of multiple smokers and heavy jets or airliners.
This extra cost is justified by the fact that the smell of a cigarette is really hard to remove, and the cleaning team have to use special products for different materials like carpet, fabric, leather and so forth.
So what do you do when the customer ask you to smoke in the cabin?
First of all, inform the Captain. If you are new in the company or a free lance, double check with him/her the company procedure about smoking in the cabin and extra charges.
Then, discreetly, pass the information to the customer and let him/her decide.
If it’s a yes, provide all the necessary (ashtray, lighter and/or different cigars or cigarettes) and change the ashtray every 20 minutes by bringing a new one and taking away the old one.
For safety reasons, never leave the customer without ashtray, not even for a second.
When disposing the cigarettes, be vigilant of fire hazards.
Take an air-sickness bag and fill it up with one or two glasses of water and use that as cigarette collection bag.
When the flight is over, you can throw them away in the waste bin.
Some jets have a selection of cigars and cigarettes to offer to smoker customers and the Flight Attendant is responsible for their purchase.
After landing, have a look at the ashtrays in the lavatory and collect all waste.
Smoking in the proximity of the Jet is prohibited for Crew Members.
Have you ever experienced a smoking flight? How did you handle that?