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Smokers pack special airport room at Dulles
By Ann Geracimos
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
 empers were hot one recent Thursday afternoon inside the smokers' bubble on C Concourse at Washington Dulles International Airport.
Officially called the Smoking Lounge, the space is a totally enclosed glass box opposite gate C4 with no amenities beyond a few knee-high ashtrays and rows of black seats lining all four walls.
. . . . The facility, which resembles a see-through appendage on an otherwise colorful corridor, is often empty during off-peak hours. However, between 3:30 and 6:30 p.m., when the airport does two-thirds of its business, space inside the "box" can be standing-room-only. Smokers huddle in the center, sit on luggage or sprawl on the floor.
. . . . It can get very friendly inside the capsule -- one of only three interior spaces where smoking is permitted at Dulles.
. . . . It also can get very smoky. Very much so.
. . . . Passengers alighting from or leaving on a United Airlines Amsterdam flight on this particular day were restive. Nicotine nerves? Unwinding after eight hours on a cramped overseas flight?
. . . . Few felt like giving the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority a pat on the back for providing them with their refuge -- Dulles is the only airport in the region to have one. (Baltimore-Washington International allows smoking in the privately operated bars and restaurants that have separate smoking areas, but it does not have an area officially set aside for the public.)
. . . . "What is insulting when you come to an American airport, you find no provisions for smokers," volunteered the Dutch director of an American medical-equipment manufacturing firm stopping by for a last smoke before boarding a flight for Los Angeles.
. . . . "I agree with the no-smoking policy on airplanes because that is such a small space, but this is too small." The Amsterdam airport, he boasted, has "smoking stands" in customs and baggage-claim areas as well as in the airport bars and restaurants.
. . . . Huff and puff. His indignation was rising. "Americans are such hypocrites about smoking," he snarled. "Yet you allow people to eat the fattest food in the world."
. . . . Apparently, he saw no potential health problem for people inhaling so-called secondary smoke against their will. Yes, ceilings at Amsterdam's main airport are higher than those at Dulles, he admitted.
. . . . Fresh air is supposed to circulate every minute or so inside the lounges. Flight announcements are supposed to come over a public-address system inside the 400-square-foot C concourse box. Yet by 5 p.m., breathing without inhaling fumes was becoming noticeably difficult. No sound penetrated from the great beyond.
. . . . Passengers circulated faster than air currents. Ashtrays were close to overflowing. People were in and out of the door in a steady stream. Few were smiling, although strangers chatted together amiably enough. Half or more seemed to be Europeans; the C location is close to gates used for international flights.
. . . . Joel and Katie Longanecker of Portland, Ore., both 33, took up the Dutchman's cause. The couple were returning from a delayed honeymoon in Amsterdam. He is a chain smoker and "a house husband." She works in his father's restaurant. It was her birthday, but, she said, "I keep forgetting."
. . . . The Dulles lounge, they agreed, was the smallest one of its type they had ever seen.
. . . . "I think it should be better ventilated," said Kellie Gibbs, 32, a self-employed computer consultant from Somerset, Pa., on her way to a vacation in Holland. "This is the pits. Just because we're smokers doesn't mean I like smoke in my face." She often flies out of Dulles and knows there is another, larger lounge in D Concourse, also in the midfield terminal.
. . . . The crowding was understandable, she said. "Passengers taking international flights stoke up because you know you aren't going to get nicotine for a while." She said the proposed stiff tax increase on cigarettes didn't especially bother her because she can make her own. Taxes are even higher in the Netherlands, where she said she could buy American tobacco loose and roll up a few in emergencies.
. . . . "D lounge is better," she noted. "There are more seats, and it is not as smoky."
. . . . It's also a half mile away.
. . . . Pfc. Chris Williams, 20, from Fort Meade Army base had been in the D lounge since noon awaiting an evening flight home to Atlanta. Dressed in civvies, he had a cigarette in hand and a water bottle by his side. He said he had hoped to get on an earlier AirTran flight.
. . . . Another incentive to leave early: Cartoons played noisily on a TV screen in one corner, although fortunately, no children were present.
. . . . An Old Dominion microbrewery bar extends into the room from the outside corridor known in airport lingo as a holding room. Patrons can pay for drinks outside and bring them into the lounge, where a phone bank -- a luxury! -- lines one wall.
. . . . Pfc. Williams, a chain smoker who had never been to Dulles, was relieved to find the lounge --any lounge. A previous experience negotiating Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, a totally smoke-free facility, had been literally disarming.
. . . . "At National, I had 5 pounds or so of gear, and every time I wanted to go outside for a smoke, it took me three or more minutes just to go through security. Then I had to do it all over again getting back in. I had to take my belt apart and prove my cell phone worked. It was a nuisance."
. . . . In general, airport authorities in the United States and Canada follow local city, county or state laws to determine whether smoking will be permitted inside terminals, according to the spokeswoman for Airports Council International. Dulles, which is run by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, heeds Virginia laws.
. . . . An ACI survey last year showed that designated smoking rooms with separate ventilation systems are on the increase. Among 87 North American airports responding, 21 have such rooms or "lounges." All domestic airlines ban in-flight smoking. Foreign carriers that allow it are few in number. Among them are All-Nippon, Lufthansa and Air France.
. . . . According to Dulles Vice President and Airport Manager Keith M. Meurlin, Dulles started installing the special rooms in 1995. It was done in response to complaints from employees and passengers objecting to the smoke drifting from designated smoking areas in bars and restaurants. So Dulles banned smoking anywhere except inside the boxes. A third, larger one just opened in the new B Concourse.
. . . . The decision has helped rather than hinder business, he says. "Bars have increased their sales because of a no-smoking policy. Customers instead of sitting around smoking will drink up and leave. They don't linger as long."
. . . . The reason for putting in glass enclosures is psychological as well, he explains. "The thought was, it [the smoking lounge] is still part of the holding room. People find great comfort when someone shows up to begin taking tickets at a gate."
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