German Entrepreneur's Glamour Airline: Nicotine Niche or Pipe Dream?

DUESSELDORF, Germany -- At the international airport in this western German city, smokers are shunned. If you want to light up, you're restricted to a handful of bars in the terminal, or else stuck puffing on the dingy street outside.

Soon, however, tobacco lovers from around the world could be beating a path to Duesseldorf. A start-up airline based here plans to offer long-haul luxury flights -- to Asia, at first -- that cater to smokers, countering a decades-long global trend that has made it impossible to enjoy a cigarette on most passenger flights.

The new airline is called, naturally, Smoker's International Airways, or Smintair for short. The founder is a local entrepreneur who promises a return to the days when air travel was considered glamorous, when stewardesses were happy to bring you a glass of scotch, and when smoking in the lavatory didn't risk criminal prosecution.

"Other airlines have lost every kind of sympathy for their passengers by leaps and bounds. They treat them like cattle," said Alexander W. Schoppmann, a former stockbroker who started Smintair. "What all of those carriers want these days is for you to stay in the seat, and you better bloody well stay there, and don't even ask for anything to eat or drink. You can't do anything."

On Smintair, according to Schoppmann, there will be plenty of room for passengers to indulge their vices, whether it's smoking, drinking or even small-stakes gambling. Fliers will be able to mingle at bars on the upper or lower deck of a Boeing 747, which will be reconfigured to be so roomy that there will be space for just 138 passengers, instead of the 400 or so typically seated by most carriers.

The only thing banned on Smintair will be cramped, cheap economy-class seats, Schoppmann said. Everyone will sit in either first or business class -- at round-trip fares to Japan between $6,700 and $14,500 -- making Smintair the latest entry in a growing number of new airlines limiting themselves to high-end service.

When Schoppmann announced plans for his smokers' airline a year ago in Germany, he was met with ridicule. Aviation analysts questioned whether his business plan was viable. Anti-smoking groups blasted him for spreading carcinogens in the skies.

But Smintair has gradually moved closer to reality. The airline has won approval for a coveted landing slot at Duesseldorf International Airport and has permission to fly to its first destination, Nagoya airport in central Japan.

Schoppmann said he expects to finalize the purchase of his first jumbo jet in the next few weeks from a South African Airways subsidiary. If all goes well, he said, Smoker's International Airways will make its maiden voyage early next year.

He hopes to acquire one or two more Boeing 747s by next summer, which would allow for daily flights between Germany and Japan, and possibly other routes.

Paradoxically, Schoppmann claims that the air on Smintair will be cleaner than on other carriers. He is planning to install an extra-strength air-conditioning system that will constantly pump in fresh air from outside, as opposed to the partly recirculated cabin air that wafts through most planes.

"People think the cabin will be full of smoke, which is bollocks," he said. "The air on Smintair will be more refreshing than on a normal flight. You will not even notice the smell of somebody smoking a cigarette or pipe in the next seat."