All scheduled flights between the United States and foreign destinations will be completely smoke-free beginning June 4, U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater said today.

DOT today issued rules through the Office of the Secretary and the department’s Federal Aviation Administration prohibiting smoking on all scheduled passenger flights by U.S. airlines and on scheduled passenger flights of foreign carriers into and out of the United States. The rules also prohibit smoking in the cockpit on those flights. The rules implement a provision of the Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act of the 21st Century, which President Clinton signed into law on April 5. "Protecting the health of Americans includes ensuring their right to breathe smoke-free air when they travel," U.S. Transportation Secretary Slater said. "With today’s action, we complete work on President Clinton’s and Vice President Gore’s commitment to ensure that people can travel by air without having to worry about encountering smoking on their flight." Currently, 97.7 percent of international flights between the United States and other countries, including 100 percent of U.S.-carrier flights, are smoke-free, largely due to voluntary actions on the part of the carriers with encouragement from the U.S. government. Some eight years ago, by contrast, there were virtually no smokeless international flights. All U.S. scheduled domestic flights have been smoke-free since February 1990.

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