How much if you take the unfiltered flights?

In principle, I strongly favor this option. I also like the idea of a guy making money off political incorrectness. In practice, it must be a thoroughly unpleasant flight -- even apart from cleaning out your wallet.

As for the name, I'm reminded of Bill Rusher's recollection that he once saw a remarkable brand of beer in Austria:
"Pschitt."

As for me I keep reading: "scimitar" every time I pass over this post . . . and that's not a good thing to think about as you board a plane these days!

In the early 90s, I flew on an Italian airline from London to Florence. Everyone (everyone but me, that is) was smoking pungent European style cigarettes that looked and smelled a bit like black tar . . . or something . . . whatever they were, they certainly were not Marlboro's! If I think about it, I can still make out the smell today. I rather enjoyed the novelty and the foreign feel of it for about an hour, but into the second hour I started to get queasy. I felt like I did when as a kid I secretly stole a drag on Grandpa's carelessly abandoned cigarette butt. This situation was aggravated by the otherwise more civilized seating arrangements on the Italian craft. They were not in rows, but groupings--as in trains of old--where you are facing everyone in your group. So the thick smoke of all around me was directed--or seemed to be directed--to my nose. This fact and my unfortunate deficiencies in the Italian language made what might have been an interesting flight rather unpleasant. Still, I have always regretted that I didn't learn how to bum a cig in Italian before getting on that flight. Some hair of the dog might have improved my nausea and my initial opinion of Italians.

Actually, upon reading the story, it seems that the man who is trying (against the odds, I think) to get this project airborne has figured out how to keep the air clean.

Julie, your story reminds me of Christopher Buckley's hilarious novel, "Thank You for Smoking" (which the filmmakers last year utterly butchered). In the book, the Eastern Europeans were among the favorites at the "Academy for Tobacco Studies." "They demanded more tar and nicotine, not less. Lung cancer was proof of quality."