Continental Airline Tickets

Why do airlines hide behind the authorities?

I know that they are for good purpose, but why must the airlines say "federal regulations" when telling about no smoking and electronic devices in the safety briefing. It doesn't matter whose rule it it, it is a rule that must be enforced. I travel a lot on business and all the airlines do it.

Public Comments

1. Because another part of those regulations is that we the F/A's say certain announcements verbatim!!!
2. Simple, it's what we can call a "blame-shift". It's not the airlines fault that you can not smoke, it's the governments. This stops potential argumentation, it's useless to complain because the rules are not invented by the airline.
3. Because it is the FAA that mandates that you can't smoke onboard. And that you can't tamper with smoke detectors. This gives the rules some credibility. I'd be a little more scared to smoke on a flight, even if the airline was Easy Cheap Crappy Air. People listen when the government speaks, most of the time.
4. I gave that very same phraseology several times a day when I was an active flight attendant and always wondered why we could not just state the regulation. Everyone tries to place the blame somewhere else. The best is when we get our county's real estate tax bill and when referring to late payments, it states: "By law we are required to charge ?% penalty.
5. Because all airlines must follow and enforce these regulations under the Federal Aviation Administration...otherwise the airlines, pilots and flight attendants pay hefty fines if they do not enforce these rules.
6. You're asking the wrong question. The question I ask you is, why SHOULD they take the blame for things that aren't their fault? The reason they pass the buck and shift the blame is because they have irate passengers that yell and should about the stupidest things. All they want to do is finish doing what the passenger wants, and move on. This means getting the passenger to give up on wanting to violate federal regulations, because it'll never happen, and it'll only make the ordeal last longer. Why should the airlines have to explain FAA regulations? They may not even know why the rule's in place. Responding that it's an FAA regulation is perfectly acceptable, and makes it clear that the airline could not help them violate that rule, even if they wanted to.
7. By saying they are federal rules they are letting you know that if you break them you are subject to prosecution by the federal government as opposed to the fact if they were airline rules the most they could do is throw you off the plane.