Owners of cats and dogs that don’t like to travel can buy “calming” sprays to ramp down their pets’ anxiety. Now airlines are doing the same thing to their passengers.

Delta infuses its planes with an aroma it calls “Calm.” It intends to create “a more relaxing environment” for passengers, The Wall Street Journal recently reported. United is spritzing its lounges and boarding corridors with a scent it calls “Landing.”

In this, aviation joins other industries practicing a new form of consumer manipulation called “scent marketing.” It’s a dangerous business for any industry, given the number of Americans with allergies — or simply aversion — to chemical scents. It’s wrong for the airlines, in particular, because their customers cannot easily escape.

Scent marketing is not new. Three years ago, a grocery store in New York was caught infusing its air with the scent of chocolate and fresh-baked bread, in hopes of stimulating sales. A North Carolina company that sells smells promises, “These scents will make consumers spend more.”

Ironically, the rise of “nebulization technology” — which distributes scent in a large space through fans or air-conditioning units — comes at a time when many companies are adopting fragrance-free policies.

Of particular concern are aromas meant to alter alertness and mood. A company called Nature’s Baby makes a spray for a baby’s crib that is marketed as a “special sleepy scent.” Febreze hawks a lavender-based spray as an adult sleep aid. Consumer participation, however, is voluntary, unlike on a plane or in an airport terminal.

Presumably, Delta’s “Calm” is just a pleasant scent, not a poppy field at 40,000 feet. But it sounds otherwise, and even without sinister implications and the health issues that inhaling chemicals suggests, many people just can’t abide perfume.

If the airlines want to provide pleasing fragrances, they should bake cookies on board.

Editorial by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette