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Never smoke on a commercial flight

Smoking, including e-cigarettes, is banned on virtually all commercial flights worldwide.

Global TravelstrictUpdated September 2, 2026

No smoking of any kind (cigarettes, vapes, e-cigarettes) anywhere on a commercial aircraft, including the lavatories. This applies for the entire flight, not just takeoff/landing.

Disabling or tampering with a lavatory smoke detector to hide vaping is treated as a serious security violation, not just an etiquette breach, and can result in the flight being diverted.

The ban wasn’t universal overnight: Cuba was the last country to fully ban in-flight smoking in 2014, and China only announced a full ban across its airlines in 2017, giving carriers a two-year window to comply. On any airline flying today, though, the rule is absolute.

Why it matters

Airlines banned smoking industry-wide starting in the late 1980s–1990s over fire risk and cabin air quality, driven partly by a 1992 ICAO resolution urging member states to phase out in-flight smoking entirely by 1996. Most major aviation markets fell in line through the 1990s: the US in 2000, the EU and UK in 1997, Japan's international routes by 1999. It's now enforced as a hard rule, not a courtesy, tampering with a lavatory smoke detector is a federal offense in many countries.

Source: 14 CFR 121.317 – smoking prohibitions and lavatory tampering penalty (US e-CFR)

Never smoke on a commercial flight

Why it matters

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