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I have the pleasure of frequently flying Delta (i.e. Delta Connection) flights on CRJ-700 and CRJ-900 aircraft. All of them have a bogus EXIT sign between First Class and the main cabin: enter image description here

This is roughly half-way between the front doors and the wing exits. This seems to me to make nonsense of any safety regulations requiring EXIT signage.

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe Delta's lately been carrying a lot of passengers capable of teleportation? $\endgroup$
    – Vikki
    Commented Jul 28, 2018 at 23:47
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    $\begingroup$ Might be on to something @Sean; it seems to me, like above, it's mostly vampires, as evidently they can't stand the sight of daylight. $\endgroup$
    – Steve Smith
    Commented Jul 29, 2018 at 15:52

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Normally there is some kind of barrier, a bulkhead or curtain, separating the business class and the common folk in steerage. In such a case the sign is to indicate that there is an exit somewhere down yonder beyond the bulkhead.

In this case the curtain is not there so the sign kind of hangs there with its nonsensical implication that maybe there is an exit right next to it. I'll go out on a limb and guess that the regs require the sign to be there between the two classes regardless of whether a visual divider is in place.

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    $\begingroup$ I would guess that it's not required if there's no divider, but it's allowed, and not worth the effort to remove it. $\endgroup$
    – fooot
    Commented Jul 26, 2018 at 20:16
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    $\begingroup$ Flew again yesterday (and I'm always in row 5)... the black strip at the bottom of the sign is a vestigial curtain hanger track. So I guess we can convict on the evidence. $\endgroup$
    – Steve Smith
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 13:07
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    $\begingroup$ Sometime after 9/11, I noticed the walls between first and steerage were replaced with curtains, and then a few years later the curtains disappeared too. My guess is that they were removed for "security" reasons, e.g. removing a chokepoint for terrorists could easily defend while they tried to breach the cockpit door. But getting FAA approval to remove exit signs (a "safety" item, even if now unnecessary) on the brackets that held up said walls/curtains would be expensive, so the signs stayed. $\endgroup$
    – StephenS
    Commented Jan 5, 2019 at 5:34

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