This new service will allow travellers to smoke and travel in comfort while getting to their destination without any more stress than necessary. This is a direct retaliation from the man who has had enough of expensive long haul flights with poor service.
‘Smintair’ will only be offering business class and first class tickets which will retail at 6,500 euros ($12,430) for business class seat 10,000 euros ($19,130) for a first class seat. "Demand is strong," Schoppmann said. "We get people who say they want to fly with us, even though they have no business in Tokyo or Shanghai," he said. These daily flights will also offer Cuban cigars, have large ashtrays and you will be served caviar from flight attendants in designer uniforms. The extravagance will not cost anymore than a flight to Japan with another airline he stated. Schoppmann is expecting to create a profit in the first 12 months of operations and is forecasting a pre-tax profit of 120 million euros by October 2008 with projected sales of 500 million euros.
Germans have been reluctant to ban smoking which could be attributed to the ban that Hitler imposed on smoking in public places when he was in power. Berlin is considering this option again and in Europe, Germany has the most lenient laws on smoking. The Social Democrats have drafted a proposal to ban smoking in many public places and it would seem that there will be a toughening up of these regulations. At present the statistics show that 140,000 German people die from tobacco related illnesses and on average one in three Germans is a smoker.
Ernst-Guenther Krause, vice-president of the Non-Smoker Initiative Germany, said Schoppmann's idea would not work because people were progressively more aware of the risks of smoking. "Most people have realised by now that tobacco is not good for them," he said. There are many people in the industry who are very cynical and they do not believe that it this will work. "I don't think an all-business class smoking flight can be run economically from Duesseldorf," said Andreas Kretzschmar, chairman of the Board of Airline Representatives in Germany.
At present there is one small problem and that is delaying Smintair, it does not have an airline license yet and it is still waiting to get its planes. They were taking over three used Boeing 747’s but the delivery has been delayed due to the late delivery of the newer Airbus A380 super jumbo.
Alexander Schoppmann is a twenty a day smoker and has hopes of opening hotels, restaurants and holiday resorts if this venture is the successful endeavour that he foresees. He was pondering the expansion of the airline with routes that included Sao Paulo and Johannesburg in the Southern hemisphere.
