kick the habit on trans-Atlantic trips.

A decision by the United States Department of Transportation this week has opened the way to discussion between leading airlines on whether to ban smoking on all trans-Atlantic flights.

British Airways, American Airlines, Continental and US Air among others have been given the green light to consider a joint ban on smoking on all flights across the Atlantic.

At present, airline companies make their own policies on smoking on international flights the number of smoking seats available.

Meanwhile carriers operating domestic flights within the United States are forced to keep them smoke-free under US law.

Until now, anti-trust competition laws prevented the carriers which also include KLM, TWA, United Air Lines, Royal Dutch and Northwest from making a combined decision on the issue.

British Airways which still offers smoking seats on its direct flights to Heathrow from Bermuda, has recently made a number of its flights between London and US cities non-smoking.

One of four BA daily flights from JFK to London is completely smoke-free, as are some round flights from Los Angeles and Detroit to London.

BA flights within the United Kingdom, short European flights and all flights to Australia are also non-smoking.

"They want to have a look at it with other airlines,'' said BA public relations consultant, Mrs. Sallie Singleton.

"If it is economically viable at least they will be able to discuss it.'' Yesterday, Ms Theresa Hanson -- company spokesman at American Airlines' corporate headquarters admitted there was still significant demand for smoking sections on long flights.

"We're looking at it on a flight by flight basis. It is not an industry-wide ban at this point. We prefer to look at it on a customer demand basis.

"We can't just ban smoking on all our flights until we are comfortable that it won't lose us market share,'' she added.

Last month AA introduced ten non-smoking trans-Atlantic flights which include round-trips from New York to Heathrow.

US Air local station manager Mr. Herbie Siggins said all flights out of Bermuda to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore have been non-smoking since the company first operated out of Bermuda in 1989.

He admitted he did not know whether US Air would be banning smoking on its trans-Atlantic flights. But he indicated that smokers are unpopular not only with other passengers but the airline itself.

"It's amazing what nicotine does to the furnishings of an airplane,'' he said. "It causes staining and reeks of smoke. It creates a very unfortunate effect.''