Despite the fact that airlines have prohibited smoking cigarettes and other products aboard airplanes for years, illuminating “No Smoking” signs aboard airplanes will no longer be required by the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States effective as of Tuesday, October 22, 2024 as a direct final rule.
Illuminating “No Smoking” Signs Aboard Airplanes to No Longer Be Required
Comments are currently being accepted by the Federal Aviation Administration through Monday, September 23, 2024. “If the FAA receives an adverse comment, the FAA will advise the public by publishing a document in the Federal Register before the effective date of this direct final rule”, according to a document at an official Internet web site of the federal government of the United States. “That document may withdraw the direct final rule in whole or in part.”
Members of flight crews aboard airplanes are required to currently be able to manually activate and deactivate overhead illuminated “No Smoking” signs. As the current regulations were drafted when the Department of Transportation of the United States permitted smoking at times aboard airplanes during commercial flights, these amendments bring the regulations into alignment with current practice for the manufacturing and operations of aircraft.
Airlines that were based in the United States banned smoking aboard airplanes during commercial domestic flights of fewer than two hours in 1988. That ban was extended to domestic flights of fewer than six hours in February of 1990. By the year 2000, smoking was not allowed on all domestic and international flights in the United States.
Final Boarding Call
Some airlines currently use the illuminated No Smoking signs as a signal that the airplane has officially entered final approach to land at the destination airport. I doubt that functionality will become obsolete with the new direct final rule.
Considering that approximately 24 years have elapsed between the time that smoking was banned aboard airplanes in the United States and the acknowledgement of this direct final rule, one would wonder what took so long…
…or simply shrug his or her shoulders and cite this as an example of the absurdity and typical speed of government in action…
All photographs ©2015, ©2021, and ©2024 by Brian Cohen.
