Budget and Avis ban smoking in rental cars

by Katie Hammel on

First you couldn’t smoke on planes. Then trains banned smoking. Now, you can’t smoke in rental cars, at least, not if you rent from Avis or Budget. As of October 1, all cars in both rental companies’ fleets will be non-smoking.

Avis and Budget say the policy came about in response to the needs of renters, citing a non-smoking car as the most-popular rental request. Cars that have been smoked in also require additional cleaning and are out of service longer, costing the companies more money. A spokesman for the Avis Budget Group says they expect some smokers to be upset with the new rules and to take their business elsewhere, but that they think overall the new plan will attract more customers than it will lose.

Avis and Budget will be the first major rental car companies to ban smoking entirely (others offer “non-smoking” cars but many don’t guarantee them), though they are only instituting the ban among their North American fleet, not worldwide. Each car will undergo an inspection upon return and renters who have smoked in the vehicle will be charged a cleaning fee of up to $250.

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He apparently really needed that smoke

by Annie Scott on

Everyone knows that smoking is not allowed on Delta flights — including passenger Henry McDowell, Jr., who lit up in the bathroom and then started a fight so brutal the FBI got involved.

Here is the sequence of events. Backwards:
12. The plane lands, and McDowell is charged with interfering with a flight crew.
11. McDowell apologizes to the flight attendant he smacked twice.
10. McDowell is moved to the front of the plane, away from the people he was fighting.
9. McDowell smacks a flight attendant twice.
8. McDowell goes postal on a passenger, the passenger’s girlfriend, and the passenger’s girlfriend’s brother.
7. A different passenger expresses his displeasure in a comment to McDowell.
6. The crew decides to land the plane and get rid of Henry McDowell in Raleigh, North Carolina (because it wouldn’t be fair to take him to his destination after he broke the rules? WTF, Delta? If I’d been a passenger on that plane who needed to catch a connecting flight or had an appointment I’d have been irate. Irate.).
5. Henry McDowell is caught smoking.
4. Henry McDowell lights a smoke.
3. The airplane takes off.
2. Henry McDowell says that the “airplane sucks.”
1. Henry McDowell is a loud, aggressive douche at the gate.
0. Henry McDowell’s life sucks. (We figure).

You can read the whole FBI account here (.pdf).

I really disagree with Delta’s call here. The flight was only going to Savannah, Georgia, and the fact that they made an emergency landing for this dude probably just added to his inflated sense of himself.

[via Wired]