US Air banning "fake cigs"

[BigJimW]

Anyway, I put it away, but tried to explain to them that it is not dangerous and I thought that pilots and FAs were using them. "Oh no, US Airways has banned fake cigs. We are supposed to confiscate them. They can blow up during the flight!"

God almighty. Talk about utter ignorance being fed to the masses.

[syrus]

OH NO!!! OH MY GOD!!! A FAKE CIGARETTE!!!! NO! NO! NO!!!!!!! A E-CIGARETTE!! OH MY GOD!!!!!
Can't anyone see what's going on here and how ridicules this is??? You would have caused less of a scene by smoking a real cigarette!!! This makes me very uneasy about how dramtic and ridicules this is...........

[DonDaBoomVape]

This is so ironic. I just posted this note on the new sticky "Vape Friendly Airlines" thread and then this thread from April gets bumped up toward the top of the subforum to provide an answer (which I hope is outdated). [No, it is not an optimistic hope.]

[Symmetric]

He was a U.S. citizen and he was a terrorist, Which were the 2 qualifiers in your post.

also to your point, foreign terrorists didn't use aircraft as weapons until 8 years ago either... (kamikaze pilots were not terrorists)

[jj2]

In March I flew to see my daughter. First off, I had no trouble with my e cig exploding and I didn't bother taking it apart.
Atlanta and Raleigh treated it like a regular cig. I was told to go where the smokers where. This is the trip when I started using the ecig and the reason is because my daughter & her husband didn't like the smell and it was always a hassel.
I ignored what I was told at the airports. I went into the restrooms when I felt like vaping. No alarms, no people screaming about the smell. I was a bit selfish and waited for the handicapped stall and I took a book and just stayed--it's a good thing they had more than one of those. :~)

[jen28f]

I have an 801, are they banning fake pens, too??

[Elokin6]

I really think the FA was probably blowing smoke or misinformed. Some of them seem to have a tendency to freak out over simple things.

I've been in and around the airline industry for 10 years. My mom is currently an FA and my hubby works for an aircraft manufacturer. I believe that I have heard of or witnessed just about every crazy thing that has happened in an airport or commercial aircraft ("service" pig losing it in flight, grown men peeing in trash cans, luggage filled with goat cheese, in flight biker brawls, etc). I have never heard of anything unintentionally blowing up in the passenger cabin of an aircraft. The cargo pit is another story, which is why you aren't supposed to check things like gasoline (yes, I've personally seen people try to do this).

I sincerely doubt that a PV could explode in flight, but I haven't personally tested it. I guess the vibration theory could hold true, but it seems like a pretty remote possibility. I haven't flown since I got my PV, but I have a friend who just flew cross country with his Blu and he didn't have any trouble with the battery going off unintentionally. I suppose the type of aircraft would make somewhat of a difference though since some vibrate more than others.

It is definitely possible to set off a smoke detector with vapor. My husband's band set off the smoke detectors at a club here with their fog machines a few years back. Newer smoke detectors aren't supposed to go of due to vapor like that from a fog machine and you would have to produce a hell of a lot of vapor with your pv to set one off. Lav smoke detectors are uber sensitive though, so it could theoretically be possible, assuming they are the type that would go off due to vapor.

I personally don't see myself vaping in flight anytime soon. I have a friend who vapes in the lav all the time without problem, but I am a chicken.

Sorry for the book of a post. I'm kind of an avaition geek

[RIAFlight25]

For what its worth I'll say it again....

Airplane lav detectors can and will go off due to vapor if large amounts are blown into the detector, or near it.

They are equipped with a phototronic beam that measures light density to the sensor. When any substance obscures this "Beam" Inside the detector, the alarm goes off.

I have set off many detectors on my own aircraft, as a test to this theory, and gotten written confirmation of this from several manufacturers of lav detectors.

Just blow your vapor twoard the floor, or if your aircraft is equipped with a vaccuum drain, blown it down that!

To be honest, Us Flight attendants really dont care if you vape. If I have a passenger thats happy and not nic fitting, it will make my life and the flight go by so much easier for the both of us.

If your doing it in the lav.... well, outta sight, outta mind! You had just bettert come to the back galley and share some of that delicious RY4 with me that you were vaping, and we will be all square! Now that thats settled.

Safe Travels!!!