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Ailing Air Do flies in face of airlines' smoking ban 

Hokkaido International Airlines Co. (Air Do) introduced smokers' seats Friday on its Sapporo-Tokyo route to attract smoking passengers in an effort to improve its financial situation, airline officials said.

Air Do has allocated a quarter of its seats to smokers on each of the route's 12 daily flights, allowing 70 passengers to smoke on the journey, the officials said. . .

Nonsmokers will be largely unaffected by smoking on the flights because of air-conditioning on the planes, the officials claimed, adding that they will ask smokers to limit themselves to one or two cigarettes during the flight.

The airline's first smoking flight arrived at New Chitose airport in Hokkaido at around 9:20 a.m. with 112 passengers on board, 11 of whom used the smoking seats.

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