In the past there have been planes that actually have been grounded because people were vaping on them. You’d think people would know that vaping is taboo on most flights. Those that are unaware or simply do it anyway, learn the hard way.
This time it was on a Korean airlines flight earlier this year, when a South Korean reggae band member was fined 1 million Won (around $900 US dollars) for vaping. According to The Korea Herald, a 36-year old man named Ra Guk-san, was caught vaping an e-cigarette in his seat before eventually being arrested when the plane landed.
Believe it or not, Ra got off lucky. He vaped a month before the law was revised to become even stricter. Now, anyone caught vaping on a plane is fined 10 million Won ($9,000) if its in flight and 5 million Won ($4,500) if grounded. The law puts vaping in the same category as smoking. Although there is no combustion or actually smoke, it is deemed a tobacco product in the law. It falls into the “no smoking” ban on flights just like cigarettes. Saying that vaping is a tobacco product can be argued, even though obviously there is no tobacco in e-juice. But it is obvious that vaping can cause nowhere near as much damage to a plane as smoking a cigarette.
With the growing popularity of e-cigarettes and vape mods, in my opinion it is inevitable that we will see an increase in these sorts of cases in the years to come. But with these types of penalties getting more severe, I suppose people will force themselves to suppress their nicotine intake momentarily.
Included below is a YouTube sensation Grimm Green explaining the story. It begins at the 19:13 mark. We did an exclusive interview with Grimm over the summer.
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