In recent years, with the rapid development of tourism, more and more people choose to travel by air. However, for some heavy smokers, the few hours of flying have become an endless torment of non-smoking. To solve this problem, airlines have equipped their planes with ashtrays so that travelers can secretly smoke in the toilets.
In fact, as everyone knows, smoking is strictly prohibited on board. Why do you need to set up an ashtray? This is not to cater to the demand for smoking, but to better ensure safety.
Although passengers are not allowed to carry dangerous items such as lighters on board the aircraft, they will go through strict security checks before boarding. However, there may be special circumstances that have not been detected, such as when a passenger hides a lighter in their luggage, etc. If someone smokes in the toilet without permission during the flight, there is no place to extinguish the smoke, which may cause the cigarette butts to be thrown directly into the trash can and cause a fire.
To prevent this from happening, ICAO has mandated that ashtrays must be set up on board the aircraft and placed in a conspicuous location, regardless of whether smoking is permitted or not. That way, if someone is caught smoking during the flight, you can at least make sure they throw their cigarette butts into the ashtray to avoid a safety hazard.
However, the issue of passenger safety has not eliminated everyone's doubts. Some people think that if smoking is not allowed on airplanes, why give smokers a chance? This is undoubtedly a question of the airline's safety policy. In fact, airlines around the world have encountered similar skepticism.
Looking back at history, the 2013 Aspasia Airlines incident caused an uproar on the Internet. At that time, one of the airline's planes caused a fire due to passengers smoking cigarettes during the flight, which eventually crashed, resulting in the death of all passengers and crew. The incident had a devastating impact on the global aviation industry and heightened the controversy over whether there should be ashtrays on aircraft.
Although the vast majority of airlines strictly comply with ICAO regulations by setting up ashtrays and educating passengers about non-smoking, this does not mean that smoking incidents have been completely eliminated. For example, recently, some ** reported the news that a Chinese passenger was punished for smoking on a plane. Despite the ashtrays placed on board, it is not tolerated that passengers will not tolerate violating the smoking ban. Such incidents have raised concerns about aviation safety and raised questions about the need for ashtrays on airplanes.
In summary, the purpose of having an ashtray on board an aircraft is to ensure the safety of passengers. While smoking is strictly prohibited during flights, in order to prevent safety hazards caused by special circumstances, ICAO stipulates that ashtrays must be placed in a conspicuous position. However, this move has also sparked some controversy and questioning. Airlines and relevant regulatory authorities should strengthen publicity and education on the smoking ban for passengers, and further ensure the effectiveness of smoking ban measures through technical means to avoid the recurrence of similar incidents. At the same time, passengers should also consciously abide by the non-smoking regulations, respect the rights and interests of others, and jointly create a comfortable and safe flight environment.