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Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

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Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#71

Post by ars »

megablast wrote: post #61
ars wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets do the math then: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=785+millibars+*+876+cub... Result: Each air change costs around .62 of a gallon of gas (assuming perfect efficiency). Or around $2.50 - let's call it $10 to account for inefficiency. In contrast it costs around $10,000 per hour (not including salary) to fly a large plane. Saying they don't circulate air to save money is ridiculous.

Some airlines make just over $100 per flight. Not per person per flight, PER FLIGHT. They are looking for every saving they can get. You can work this out my looking at an an airlines profits, and how many flights they did a year.

Maybe for small regional flights. My numbers where for huge 400-500 passenger planes.

By my calculations a smaller 70 passenger plane would use around 1/5 the energy per air change, and they typically fly for only an hour or two. So for an air change every half an hour it would cost them around $4 per flight (and that's assuming low efficiency). So $100 profit is still possible (although I have to say that that's amazing low, but I'll take your word for it).

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#72

Post by lflux »

nicholaides wrote: post #10

I was thinking about this same idea earlier today: Buses in Philadelphia have a bunch of "No Eating and Drinking" signs and consequently no trash cans. The result is that the back of the bus is covered in trash. If they had just 1 or two trash cans it would be a much more pleasant ride.

Fire hazard maybe? Trash cans were removed from commuter trains in Stockholm since they were constantly being set on fire. They're on our buses though.

Go to England and you won't see trash cans in train stations at all.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#73

Post by duaneb »

snowwrestler wrote: post #64

The illustration of the door handle is a great example of piss-poor affordance. A slight ridge is not going to clearly communicate push vs. pull. Especially since our fingers, when gripping, actually like a ridge to fill in the open angle behind the first knuckles. If you want someone to push, give them a big fat flat metal plate or bar to push on. If they can't pull, they are guaranteed to get it right every time. I…

I would have tried to rotate both of those handles. You want to know a great user interface that is universally understood?

PUSH: http://www.vanseodesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/...

PULL: http://www.artfactory.com/images/Door-Handle-HH199.jpg

The door handle sacrifices usability for aesthetics.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#74

Post by corin_ »

MattRogish wrote: post #34
mdda wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The airlines actually save money by preventing smoking : The air in the cabins needs to be recycled less often. The flip side, though, is that air-bourne diseases are more prevalent on flights now, since the air is rebreathed more often before filtering. Source : Qi series 1 (BBC UK).

Wrong: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealt...

Setting aside the fact that this source is a random person blogging and quoting a pilot (his job is flying, not dealing with air-con), the fact that airplane air "isn't as disgusting as you think" doesn't mean it isn't more disgusting now than it was when smoking was allowed.

I don't have a source and am too lazy to find one, but it was stated on QI which is a show with a team of good researchers, they can on occasion be wrong (and have corrected themselves for mistakes in previous shows in the past), but they won't put a fact into a show without getting good sources for it, so if they say that air gets recycled less now than when smoking was allowed, I believe them.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#75

Post by corin_ »

gaius wrote: post #59
mdda wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The airlines actually save money by preventing smoking : The air in the cabins needs to be recycled less often. The flip side, though, is that air-bourne diseases are more prevalent on flights now, since the air is rebreathed more often before filtering. Source : Qi series 1 (BBC UK).

Uhh, you know QI is a comedy show, right? Anyway, it's not true. Air in the cabin is bled off the engines, from the early stage of the compressor, then pressurized and heated. It's not one cabinful of air that was in it from the ground endlessly recirculated. QI also told the world that the Internet uses GPS to route packets (tho' some devices may use GPS for its clock signal, packets don't know geographically where…

It's a comedy show, but that doesn't mean they don't take facts seriously. As I said in another comment further down, QI is:

a show with a team of good researchers, they can on occasion be wrong (and have corrected themselves for mistakes in previous shows in the past), but they won't put a fact into a show without getting good sources for it

So while they may be wrong in this instance, the fact that they are a comedy show isn't reason enough to think so.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#76

Post by yxhuvud »

yardie wrote: post #69
yxhuvud wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to that is to make the driver responsible for cleaning his bus, and also to give him the right to eject people that doesn't follow the rules.

Drivers are not conductors and I doing one job is hard enough, now you think they should have 3? It's probably cheaper to have a trashcan onboard than an armed driver. Yes, when you threaten people with ejection sometimes they threaten you right back.

Huh? Drivers are gatekeepers that let people onto the bus and validate that the people that enter the bus have tickets.

If people don't respect what the driver says, the driver should stop the bus, and call security and then not move until the issue is resolved. There should be no tolerance at all for people that threatens the driver.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#77

Post by corin_ »

lflux wrote: post #72
nicholaides wrote: post #10

I was thinking about this same idea earlier today: Buses in Philadelphia have a bunch of "No Eating and Drinking" signs and consequently no trash cans. The result is that the back of the bus is covered in trash. If they had just 1 or two trash cans it would be a much more pleasant ride.

Fire hazard maybe? Trash cans were removed from commuter trains in Stockholm since they were constantly being set on fire. They're on our buses though. Go to England and you won't see trash cans in train stations at all.

In England we do have bins in stations, but now days they generally consist of a transparent bin bag with no surrounding material (e.g. held open by a loop at the top that's attached to a wall). I believe the logic is that it makes it harder to hide a bomb in them, though whether this is fact or just commonly quoted myth I have no idea.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#78

Post by yxhuvud »

borism wrote: post #60
yxhuvud wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to that is to make the driver responsible for cleaning his bus, and also to give him the right to eject people that doesn't follow the rules.

wow, seriously? are you by chance a congressman or lawmaker of some sorts?

No, but I live in a country where this is how it works. Drivers here in sweden are responsible for cleaning the bus during the day (with a more thorough cleaning at the garage that the driver isn't responsible for, afaik), and he has enough authority to eject people off the bus if they are violating rules, or to not let them on if they would violate rules.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#79

Post by joshuaheard »

I think the author gives the federal government too much credit. Which is more likely: the government out-witted people by thinking ahead and foreseeing people would break the law, so they write a law to counter it; or, they left the law on the books from when smoking was legal and never amended it? I think the latter.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#80

Post by borism »

yxhuvud wrote: post #78
borism wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, seriously? are you by chance a congressman or lawmaker of some sorts?

No, but I live in a country where this is how it works. Drivers here in sweden are responsible for cleaning the bus during the day (with a more thorough cleaning at the garage that the driver isn't responsible for, afaik), and he has enough authority to eject people off the bus if they are violating rules, or to not let them on if they would violate rules.

I like Sweden. But this has to be one of the most bureaucratic approaches to solving the problem. And it's ripe for abuse.
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