Kornegay, Horace R.
Thank you to ex-American Airlines flight-attendant Patty Young of Dallas, Texas for bringing this document to Doc-Alert's attention. Patty Young now serves as a trustee to the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute (www.famri.org) which honors flight attendants who have given their lives for safer skies.
This brief 1980 note from James Bowling (Senior Vice President of Philip Morris) to Horace Kornegay (President of the Tobacco Institute) reveals the industry's intent to undermine the rule requiring airlines to establish no-smoking areas on board commercial aircraft. The rule contained a loophole that allowed a "all airlines to apply for permission to experiment wiith alternative methods of protecting nonsmokers from tobacco smoke." http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2023258262.html
Bowling states, "Does this present an opportunity for us to mount a first class effort to get the rules changed?...If this presents an opportunity to turn that one around--I think we should do everything possible."
Bowling further states,
"I believe that the successful efforts of the anti's in getting the smoking/no-smoking rule established aboard aircraft was the single most effective thing in their effort to create and promote a social stigma to public smoking."
This statement underscores the often-overlooked historic contribution made by airline flight attendants in the smoke-free movement. Flight attendants were some of the first and most compelling advocates for change. Their dogged struggle against both airline management and the tobacco industry is one of the best examples of the how a group of individuals with no money and no clout can affect sweeping changes in public health. Flight attendants experienced some of the highest exposures to secondhand smoke on the job. They were truly the "canaries in the coal mine" for secondhand smoke exposure on the job. The flight attendants' compelling testiony before Congress led Congress to eventually ban smoking on commercial aircraft. This groundbreaking legislation would not have been possible without the courageous and persistent efforts of this group of individuals.