The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is issuing a new direct and final rule that will dispense with the need for pilots to be able to turn the ‘No Smoking’ signs on and off even though smoking onboard commercial airplanes has been banned for years, and the signs are never switched off anyway.
The FAA was forced to relook at its outdated regulations in February when United Airlines suddenly grounded its brand new fleet of Airbus A321neo aircraft because the state-of-the-art aircraft were technically not compliant with federal regulations.
The problem, it turns out, is that the computer software on United’s A321neo fleet is hardwired to always have the ‘No Smoking’ signs switched on, and…
