Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays • Hacker News Board

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#41

Post by yason » Tue, May 22, 2012, 4:12 AM UTC

kgermino wrote: post #6

It seems to be down now. Here's the text if it continues to not work: I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to fly a lot over the past year or so. Working with Stephen Foskett and the rest of the Tech Field Day crew means that I’ve been to California almost every month. That’s a lot of flying. One of the things that I’ve noticed on my flights is that they don’t want you to smoke. You actually used to be able to s…

And enough time goes by without nobody ever seeing a cigarette being smoked midair, the fear of unknown grows (="that isn't normal, what could happen if someone lights a cigarette in an airplane, it could bring the whole plane down!") and then someone freaks out for seeing a pack of cigarettes in someone's pocket, and a few years after that the TSA will require cigarette packs to be removed at the security and kiosks in lounges to only sell cigarettes in sealed containers that must not be opened prior the flight.

And after that, if there's still someone who dares to smuggle these terrorist cancer sticks onto a plane and lights one, he will bring the whole plane down because some FAA rule from 2020 requires immediate landing in that case to the nearest strip to ensure the safety of passengers.

All that, despite the fact that there's still that ashtray in the toilet, non-optionally.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#42

Post by cameldrv » Tue, May 22, 2012, 4:21 AM UTC

ars wrote: post #39

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).

How exactly do they save money by not recycling air? You don't have to pay for air during flight - it comes from the outside air and is free, it's not canisters or something.

You do have to pay for air if you care what pressure it is at. Non-Sherpas will demand a refund of their ticket price if provided air at ambient pressure at 35000 ft.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#43

Post by stephen_g » Tue, May 22, 2012, 4:26 AM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #24

So in that case, we should put ashtrays in libraries, gas stations and everywhere, so we prevent fire?

Fires on planes are a little more serious. If not stopped quickly, they can spread through the space between the fuselage and the cabin, filling it with smoke. At altitude, they don't have enough oxygen to burn that well, but if it's spread far enough, as soon as you're on the ground the inrush of oxygen will turn it into an inferno in about two minutes (this is why manufacturers have to be able to show that the plane can be entirely evacuated on something like 90 seconds with half the exits blocked.)

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#44

Post by vinodkd » Tue, May 22, 2012, 4:50 AM UTC

nice message with the real reason for the ashtrays.

one thing that bothered me however, was that push vs pull handle design. if you're really trying to provide affordance, why have a handle at all on a door that needs to be pushed? isnt it our natural tendency to pull on a door handle when provided with one?

all we'd need was a "Push" sign and we'd be done. The shape of the handle hinting how to use it seems subtler than providing the whole door surface as actionable; and if you had to unlock to open, we have well established pushable door designs already.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#45

Post by phamilton » Tue, May 22, 2012, 4:57 AM UTC

This reminds me of a presentation by Twitter at a conference where they discussed MTBR (Mean Time Before Recovery) instead of MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure). Instead of trying to prevent all possible failures, they focused on acceptable failure and speedy recovery. If a server takes twice as long to response to a request, mark it offline and let the automated recovery process diagnose the problem and if it's just an anomaly mark it back online.

It was pretty interesting and we took a good look at our architecture and found ways to better cater to acceptable failures.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#46

Post by mjg59 » Tue, May 22, 2012, 5:11 AM UTC

http://www.marco.org/2012/02/25/right-vs-pragmatic is a similar example. It's important to cater for what people are going to do rather than what you think they should do.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#47

Post by bediger4000 » Tue, May 22, 2012, 5:21 AM UTC

ww520 wrote: post #9

Very good observation. I've never paid attention to the ashtray in the airplane bathrooms and thought they were relic from the plane design in the old days.

I thought they were a relic not of plane design, but from "flight certification" of the lavatories or the doors.

The FAA and the major US plane companies (of which only Boeing is left) made a huge process of flight certifying every little trinket and gewgaw. Once certified, the technology on a plane was essentially frozen, as it was too expensive to certify anything else. I give you the seatbelts and their pressed-steel 50s-style buckles as another example. They look like something Dr Benton Quest developed just after he graduated from college on the GI Bill.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#48

Post by ars » Tue, May 22, 2012, 5:51 AM UTC

cameldrv wrote: post #42

ars wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly do they save money by not recycling air? You don't have to pay for air during flight - it comes from the outside air and is free, it's not canisters or something.

You do have to pay for air if you care what pressure it is at. Non-Sherpas will demand a refund of their ticket price if provided air at ambient pressure at 35000 ft.

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.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#49

Post by vacri » Tue, May 22, 2012, 6:13 AM UTC

vinodkd wrote: post #44

nice message with the real reason for the ashtrays. one thing that bothered me however, was that push vs pull handle design. if you're really trying to provide affordance, why have a handle at all on a door that needs to be pushed? isnt it our natural tendency to pull on a door handle when provided with one? all we'd need was a "Push" sign and we'd be done. The shape of the handle hinting how to use it seems subtler…

People frequently don't read signs, which is the point of the affordance design (plus caters to folks who can't read the given language). Also, hands make stuff dirty - you do want something there that's easy to clean, though that can just be a metal plate that can't be pulled.

Re: Why airplane bathrooms have ashtrays

#50

Post by stevenwei » Tue, May 22, 2012, 6:15 AM UTC

  Then the bleeding-heart liberals attacked in 1988,
  complaining about their “filthy air” and their “lung cancer”.

  This was, of course, the thin end of the wedge. 
  In 2000, the FAA banned smoking on commercial 
  planes altogether. Talk about a bunch of buzz-kills.

Really? Does anyone actually think this was a bad idea? Forget the "filthy air" or "lung cancer", exposure to smoke can seriously aggravate asthmatics and other folks with respiratory conditions, not to mention cause respiratory conditions in children. Surely smokers can abstain for a few hours instead of exposing everyone in a confined space to their cigarette smoke. I'm at a loss as to why anyone would complain about this.