Modernization of Passenger Information Requirements Relating to “No Smoking” Sign Illumination

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Aviation Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>14 CFR Parts 25, 91, 121, and 125</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FAA-2024-2052; Amdt. Nos. 25-153, 91-377, 121-393, 125-76]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2120-AM00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Modernization of Passenger Information Requirements Relating to “No Smoking” Sign Illumination</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Department Of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is amending its regulations to allow aircraft to operate either with “No Smoking” signs continuously illuminated or with “No Smoking” signs a crewmember can turn on and off. Currently, crewmembers must be able to manually turn aircraft “No Smoking” signs on and off. However, the current regulations were drafted when the Department of Transportation (DOT) permitted smoking at times on commercial flights. These amendments bring FAA regulations into alignment with current practice for aircraft manufacturing and operations. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This direct final rule is effective October 22, 2024. Submit comments on or before September 23, 2024. If the FAA receives an adverse comment, the FAA will advise the public by publishing a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> before the effective date of this direct final rule. That document may withdraw the direct final rule in whole or in part. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Send comments identified by docket number FAA-2024-2052 using any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/</E> and follow the online instructions for sending your comments electronically. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Send comments to Docket Operations, M-30; U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W12-140, West Building Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> Take comments to Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> Fax comments to Docket Operations at (202) 493-2251. <E T="03">Docket:</E> Background documents or comments received may be read at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/</E> at any time. Follow the online instructions for accessing the docket or go to the Docket Operations in Room W12-140 of the West Building Ground Floor at 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Catherine Burnett, Flight Standards Implementation and Integration Group, Air Transportation Division, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Avenue SW, Washington, DC 20591; telephone (202) 267-8166; email <E T="03">Catherine.Burnett@faa.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> Currently, crewmembers must be able to manually turn aircraft “No Smoking” signs on and off. This requirement was implemented prior to the prohibition on smoking in passenger cabins during all phases of flight. As a general matter, there is no longer a need for the signs to indicate two different states of smoking permissibility because smoking is not typically permitted at any time on most transport category aircraft operated commercially in the United States. However, when smoking is permitted on aircraft, such as when they are operated privately, crewmembers still must be able to manually turn “No Smoking” signs on and off to inform passengers when it is acceptable to smoke. This direct final rule provides more flexibility by allowing “No Smoking” signs to be illuminated continuously. This direct final rule revises five sections of regulations that affect aircraft manufacturers and aircraft operators. Aircraft manufacturers will benefit from relieving changes in title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) part 25. In addition, pilots and aircraft operators will benefit from relieving changes to regulations in parts 91, 121, and 125. The revisions to these five sections of the CFR will allow for “No Smoking” signs to be illuminated continuously without the requirement for a physical or software switch to be built into the aircraft at the factory or used by a crewmember during an aircraft operation. Specifically, the revision to part 25 imposes no new requirements on manufacturers; they may continue to make aircraft with manually operated “No Smoking” signs. However, as an alternative, the revision to part 25 allows aircraft on which the “No Smoking” signs remain illuminated continuously to receive type certification from the FAA without having to request relief from the current regulations. Similarly, with this direct final rule, operators will be able to operate aircraft where signs can either be manually operated by crewmembers or remain continuously illuminated. 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) findings  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> and regulatory exemptions, <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> 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. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  An aircraft can be type certificated, despite apparent noncompliance with specific airworthiness provisions, if “any airworthiness provisions not complied with are compensated for by factors that provide an equivalent level of safety.” 14 CFR 21.21(b)(1). These equivalent level of safety (ELOS) findings, also known as equivalent safety findings (ESF), can be described in issue papers. Issue papers are a structured means to address certain issues in the certification and validation processes of aircraft and aircraft parts. Issue papers establish a vehicle for formal communication between the FAA and the applicant, and track resolution of the subject issues. FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 20-166. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  A petition for exemption is a request to the FAA by an individual or entity asking for relief from the requirements of a current regulation. 14 CFR 11.15. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Direct Final Rule</HD> An agency typically uses direct final rulemaking when it anticipates that a proposed rule is unnecessary as the rule is considered noncontroversial. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> The FAA has determined that this rule is suitable for direct final rulemaking and that publication of a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) is unnecessary because the rule merely aligns minor regulations of lighted “No Smoking” signs with the current prohibition on smoking. The rule imposes no new duties on regulated entities and will have little to no practical effect on the American flying public. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  14 CFR 11.13. <E T="03">See also</E> U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Order 2100.6A, paragraph 10.j(1)(b) (saying proposed rules are not required for “[r]ules for which notice and comment is unnecessary to inform the rulemaking, such as rules correcting de minimis technical or clerical errors or rules addressing other minor and insubstantial matters, provided the reasons to forgo public comment are explained in the preamble to the final rule.”) </FTNT> Section 553(b)(3)(B) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (5 U.S.C. 551 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) authorizes agencies to dispense with prior notice and comment for rules when the agency for “good cause” finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Under this section, an agency, upon finding good cause, may issue a final rule without first publishing a proposed rule. The FAA finds that publication of an NPRM would be “unnecessary”  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> for this action. A proposed rule is unnecessary for “the issuance of a minor rule in which the public is not particularly interested.”  <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> As noted previously, this rule will have no direct impact on the American flying public; smoking has been generally banned on flights since 2000. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> A direct final rule is also appropriate because this is a largely technical change with no detrimental effects on regulated entities. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> This rule imposes no new duties on manufacturers and operators. It explicitly allows manufacturers to continue to make, and operators to continue to operate, aircraft with manually operated “No Smoking” signs, but it no longer requires them to do so. Finally, this rulemaking is largely technical in that it codifies practices already widely permitted by exemption. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act (1947), 31. <E T="03">See also Mack Trucks, Inc.</E> v. <E T="03">E.P.A.,</E> 682 F.3d 87, 94 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting <E T="03">Util. Solid Waste Activities Grp.</E> v. <E T="03">E.P.A.,</E> 236 F.3d 749, 755 (D.C. Cir. 2001), which cit ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 47k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━