Oh boy. Was on a school trip to Greece in the mid nineties. ~35 teenagers and some teachers as guides and chaperones.

We were 16+ so basically drinking free booze on the plane while smoking our hearts out. We actually drank all the beer on the plane. It looked like a smoke bomb went off.

It must have been the flight from hell for other passengers. Completely unimaginable right now. Thank you Sabena Airlines for this core memory of my youth and not having us arrested in Athens.

I mean it does sound crazy to me now. But back then it was just a fact of life that both smokers and non-smokers didn't spend much thought on. I flew before I picked up smoking myself, and it didn't really feel something unusual, precisely because it was common everywhere.

There have to be other daily habits now that going to be seen as disgusting in a few decades too. Maybe things like eating non-cloned meat.

It was interesting especially juxtaposed on current reality. I hated smoking (ok I hated 2nd hand smoke as a non-smoker). But somehow, it was the right of the individual to smoke; when, where, and how they pleased. It didn't matter that other people in the space shared the air. Compared to present when the world is looking to bend over backwards to avoid putting smoke in someone else's air on a plethora of different topics. Many, that I've never contemplated. Like, for instance, I never thought I could get yelled at for using what I thought to be the correct pronoun while saying "yes sir, thank you". I'd think they'd just recognize my attempt canned politeness and say "you're welcome" and recognize why people think of them as a "sir" during casual brief interactions (because they were wearing men's clothes & had facial hair).

Common in restaurants as well. It's downright bizarre to think about now, but I remember as a child, at family restaurants like Friendly's and Howard Johnson's (which itself is an anachronism), being asked by a cheery-faced hostess whether we wanted "smoking or non-smoking".

I assure you non-smokers spent plenty of thought on it.

You don't need to assure me, I had a chance to experience it first hand both as a non-smoker and as a smoker.

You can still do that in Japanese bars and restaurants

Smoking in bars still exists in many places in the US. Granted in Texas for example, in jurisdictions where it's still legal, seems like at least 90% choose not to allow it by choice of the business owner.

Smoke smells different on a plane, for some reason.