United Airlines grounded its brand new fleet of Airbus A321neo on Monday because pilots are unable to turn the ‘no smoking signs’ off even though these signs must remain illuminated at all times when passengers are onboard.
Aviation insider xJonNYC first spotted the temporary grounding on social media site X, and a short time later, aviation journalist Seth Miller discovered that United Airlines had asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a special exemption.
Smoking was banned on domestic US flights back in 1990, and a year later, the ban was extended to all international flights, but when officials wrote up the rules, they decided that there should still be a way for pilots to manually turn off the illuminated ‘no smoking signs’ that appear throughout all passenger plane cabins.
Over the years, U.S. airlines have sought and been granted exemptions to these rules, allowing them to hardwire the illuminated ‘no smoking sign’ to remain on at all times, removing the ability of pilots to override this feature.
In fact, United noted in its letter to the FAA on Monday that the ‘no smoking signs’ on all of its Boeing aircraft can’t be turned off.
The computer software on the new Airbus A321neo aircraft, which recently joined United’s fleet, is programmed to keep the seat belt signs switched on at all times with no pilot override, but it would appear that United may have failed to get the necessary exemption before putting them into service.
In a statement, United told us: “We are removing our five Airbus A321neo aircraft from service while we seek FAA approval for the “No Smoking” sign to remain automatically illuminated rather than operated from the cockpit.”
“We’re working to minimize the disruption for customers, and we expect to cover all of today’s A321neo flying with other aircraft types, resulting in no cancellations due to this issue today. We hope to have these aircraft flying again shortly.”
Later on Monday, the FAA gave permission for United to put its A321neos back into service while it evaluates the exemption request.
Miller notes that both Allegiant Airlines and Frontier have recently filed exemption requests for software-restricted ‘no smoking’ signs on their Airbus A320 fleets, although both airlines haven’t grounded their aircraft while awaiting the exemption.
What would we do without government?
Is there a reason any aircraft require the ‘no smoking signs’ in the year 2024, when smoking on planes was outlawed how many years ago, and isn’t coming back?
I know that I’ve been on other airlines planes, both international carriers (pretty sure Singapore, for example) and domestic (Delta, and I’m pretty sure one or more of the regional carriers) where the no smoking signs were actually replaced with signs about electronics, which seems more relevant in this day and age. Do those aircraft have exemptions if they don’t even have no smoking signs?
It seems the issue here is that United didn’t get the required exemption before putting the planes into service… but you’re right, some airlines have replaced the illuminated signs with permanent placards.
If the ban is not posted, people assume (wrongly) they can. Heck, people still try to smoke and vape onboard despite an illuminated sign above every seat group and a dozen around the lavatories. Goodness knows no one is listening to the announcements.
This doesn’t seem right…is this supposed to refer the no smoking signs, not the seatbelt signs?
“The computer software on the new Airbus A321neo aircraft, which recently joined United’s fleet, is programmed to keep the seat belt signs switched on at all times with no pilot override”
There’s a typo here:
“The computer software on the new Airbus A321neo aircraft, which recently joined United’s fleet, is programmed to keep the seat belt signs switched on at all times with no pilot override”
That should say the No Smoking signs, not the seat belt signs.
Well this seems rather stupid as it’s just a simple software change, it quite often happens when new software is updated that the no smoking sign goes back to default. Sounds to me like the engineers don’t know how to program the aircraft. IAG have identical aircraft, Iberia program their signs one way and British Airways and Vueling program theirs another way.
Airplanes having near misses almost daily while the FAA makes airlines apply for an exemption for stupid shit like this. Government is the best.