Six months ago United Airlines was forced to ground its fleet of Airbus A321neo aircraft and cancel flights for the stupidest reason possible: 14 CFR § 25.791(a).
- U.S. law requires no smoking signs that can be turned off an on by crew.
- But there’s no reason to turn them off anymore! United created the first non-smoking section in 1971. Delta became the first U.S. carrier to ban smoking worldwide in 1994. And no U.S. airline has been permitted to allow smoking since 2000.
- Planes that U.S. airlines order don’t even come with non-smoking signs that can be turned off anymore.
U.S. regulations require that no smoking signs can be turned off and on by the crew so that they could be turned on. But that’s no longer needed, and hasn’t been for decades. But the rules remained in place.
So for nearly 30 years airlines have applied for, and received without controversy, an exemption to the rule when adding planes to their fleet. United simply forgot to ask for this pro forma exemption when taking delivery of their Airbus A321neos for the first time.
As a result, United was flying planes that did not conform to U.S. regulations. The airline was forced to cancel flights, and request the exemption for the A321neo which they already had for the rest of the aircraft types in their fleet.
This was a little bit embarrassing for the FAA, and that’s spurred them to finally propose letting airlines have No Smoking signs that always stay on rather than having to be turned on by crew (or receiving an exemption, which is always granted). Here’s the filing which runs 23 pages.
The FAA has long recognized the incongruity between the prohibition on smoking in most commercial aircraft and the requirement for manufacturers to construct, and operators to operate, aircraft with “No Smoking” signs that can be turned on and off. For almost 30 years, the FAA has addressed this incongruity through equivalent level of safety (ELOS) findings1 and regulatory exemptions,2 which allows aircraft to have “No Smoking” signs that are continuously illuminated during flight operations. This rule makes such ELOS findings and regulatory exemptions unnecessary.
Manufacturers will be able to continue to manufacture, and pilots and operators will be able to continue to operate, aircraft with “No Smoking” signs that can be turned on and off or “No Smoking” signs that are illuminated continuously.
A lot of things require specific FAA permission which may not seem obvious. For instance, American Airlines gave away that they were adding doors to their business class seats on new aircraft when they asked the FAA for an exemption to permit this. The FAA initially rejected the request because the letterhead American used didn’t include its mailing address (they presumably could have just asked their own American Airlines Certificate Management Office instead).
Similarly, American needed FAA permission to hand out hand sanitizer at the start of the pandemic, even though passengers were permitted to bring on their own and the FAA had already determined this was safe.
Planes, by the way, still have ashtrays even though smoking hasn’t been permitted in decades. You’ll usually find them in or near the lavatory, because customers may smoke even though it’s illegal to do so – and they need a place to put out their cigarettes. Without ashtrays they’d be most likely to put out their cigarettes in the lavatory trash.. and light the paper tossed away inside on fire.
Finally a little sense on a small thing. It’s government, though big corporations can get just as inefficient with “debris” hanging on. In a Midwestern state where I once worked a legislator went through the laws and found dozens of such things going back to the mid-19th century. He wrote and then got passed a big bill which repealed them. (As I recall one was defining three Indians in a canoe as a “war party”.) But the feds are far beyond one person even beginning to do that.
That’s a good one.
The FARS also require
– airline crew to provide instruction on the use of seat restraing devices prior to pushback
– airline crew to verify seat restraint use prior to taxi
All these are 1960s regs. In 1973 all passenger vehicles on US public highways had seat-belt use requirements. In 1974 shoulder belts were added.
At that time (1974) it would have been appropriate to think that since EVERY SINGLE PERSON who came to that flight had to use a seat-belt and know how to operate it, the instructions by the crew and the visual verification were impediments to an ontime departure.
And here we are 50 years later, and it hasn’t changed.
I’d include links but if you care you’ll look it up anyway.
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Bureaucracies gotta bureaucrat!
Why do they need the No Smoking signs at all. The rule is widely known, and this is a waste of money and electricity. There aren’t signs that say “no fistfights” or “no stealing from the other passengers.”
@Ehud: What people should know and what they do are not the same thing. People who are not buckled in are a hazard to themselves and, more importantly, others, which is why the reg says check that people have actually done it.
In this day-and-age, its probably time to just eliminate the illuminated sign and have a printed sign instead. Save on wiring and maintenance.
I could have swore that most of the times I’ve flown recently, the “No Smoking” signs weren’t even illuminated/backlit at all, just essentially a sticker, next to the “Seatbelt” logos that still do light up, when needed.
This sounds short sighted. What if smoking makes a big comeback?
Let me clear one thing up. Delta was NOT the first airline to ban smoking completely. That was done by Northwest in 1994, Delta did not merge with NWA until 2006.
The regulation was no longer good enough for government work.
@Ehud Gavron. I’m sure there are a fair number of people flying each day for the first time. Airplane seatbelts operate differently than any auto seatbelt they’ve seen.
@Adam Ostrow. I think the rule allowed stickers, but if it was illuminated, it needed an off switch.
@Pat, probably if Trump gets elected.
“You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.” Thomas Sowell
How about illuminated “no vaping” signs that can be turned off and on by the flight deck crew.
They should replace the no smoking sign with a no laptop sign.
It was Northwest, not delta who banned smothing worldwide first. Just to set the record straight.
30 years, you can’t smoke anywhere, and the FAA will finally update their rules. We indeed have the best federal government money can buy. Nobody is lobbying for anything on this subject, so the bureaucrats can’t be bothered to do some work that’s not rewarded with goodies.
Northwest Airlines was the airline that banned smoking first. I was flying it across the Pacific and across the USA at that time and no longer considered burning or burying my clothes after a flight. I flew Northwest because of reasonable service and a great mileage program which I used to offset the somewhat higher cost of tickets in coach. When Northwest was assimilated by Delta (in 2009 after agreeing to merge on April 15, 2008), everything changed. Mileage seats cost more miles and the more direct flights from LAX on NWA had to be routed through another city for the best prices. Sometimes the city was not on the west coast, such as routing through MSP, with all of the extra wasted time and aches and pains. I bought a few miles to make the miles needed for a mileage ticket and flew my last flight across the Pacific on the Delta program. It was booked on Korean Airlines through the Delta website.
The photo of the then “stewardess” lighting the passenger’s cigar is interesting. Note the shape of the window: triangular. The photo depicts the service offered on United’s “the Chicago Executive” –men only, cigars and pipes permitted, and steak dinner. Aircraft used for this service: Sud Caravelle (originally they used DC-6B’s)
Smoking will never make a “big comeback”. The rest of us will not tolerate it. The attitude now is that the nicotine addiction of a smoker is his or her problem; don’t bring it around everyone else.
And without the “no smoking” sign, a desperate smoker will think that it is OK to light up.
Honestly, it’s ridiculous that they need ‘No Smoking’ signs at all
Smoking will likely make a comeback at some point in the future.
A few hundred years ago, smoking in parts of the Middle East was punishable by instant execution.
We’re in a cycle where smoking tobacco has been replaced with marijuana, seed oils, and endless drugs for every ailment; whether real or fake.
The picture is a fake (AI), take a look at the newspaper, no print, the fingers, very weird, no logo on her uniform, etc. or maybe was such poor quality that is looks AI generated