I was a pilot that routes took me into LAX usually twice a week, and depending on wind conditions, the first thing I saw was a dome of smog as I started my approach. We'd keep the cabin on the air we had below 10,000 to avoid sucking in the stink, but you need to depressurize at some point and thankfully your bleeding pressure out. If I could get a gate right away, as soon as you opened a door you would taste the acrid smell. When you take off you get a bit of odor from your own fuel, but the cabin air is changed very quickly as you rise in altitude.

In the 70's and 80's it was so bad that my throat started to burn, my eyes watered, and I don't know how people lived under such conditions.

It was always nice to make the return to YVR for that fresh salt air, or YYC for the smell of the mountains, and even YYZ never had that dome of smog sitting over the city like LAX.

I really hope that we make the move to renewable energy as soon as posable. The rate of exposure to harmful air is killing us, and you only see it if you leave your comfort zone and fly into a Beijing or Mumbai.

Each city has a distinctive smell because of the people and their habits, but you shouldn't need to inhale the stink of their industry.