NATION : Air Smoking Ban May Be Extended

WASHINGTON — Two lawmakers proposed legislation today to make permanent the ban on smoking on airline flights of two hours or less.

The law will expire in 1990 unless Congress votes to extend it or make the ban permanent, as Reps. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Bill Young (R-Fla.) have proposed. They were the original sponsors of the measure first passed in 1987. “The American flying public not only has accepted this smoking ban, they welcomed it,” the two said in a statement. “Experience shows the law has worked extraordinarily well.”