Why there are ashtrays in planes since smoking is prohibited ?
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They’d rather you not smoke. But if you do (and god forbid we live in a world where everyone obeyed the rules) they’d rather you put the smouldering cigarette butt in an ashtray than elsewhere (usually the trash, where there’s 10 hours worth of flammable waste paper)
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A lot of airframes flown by smaller airlines tend to be older. A 25-35 year old airplane isn’t unusual, and smaller foreign airlines even older. Even though smoking over here has been outlawed on flights for over 20 years, its not uncommon for the airplanes to be older than that. Depends on the airline.
Delta, American, KLM, British Airways, other big international airlines – they like having newest, cleanest planes and have the money to continually upgrade. Or they’ll pay to have the seats with ashtrays replaced.
Ray’s Discount Bolivian-Honduran Airlways on the other hand, may still be flying the same three L-1011s they started out with in the 80s replete with ashtrays. And nothing but dials in the cockpit.
Don’t think old aircraft = unsafe however. Frankly, if an airline can keep a 30+ year airframe in the air, they’re doing something right. [American Airlines just retired their last MD-80, and those were introduced in the 80s](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2019/09/04/american-airlines-md-80-planes-retired-super-80-jets-head-roswell/2209309001/).
Edit; thought op was talking about the ones in the cabin not the still mandatory ones in washrooms. Had forgot about those.
Old airplanes still have them as they were in use when smoking was permitted and often newer planes have them if they’re using seats from an older, decommissioned aircraft
* many planes have been in service since smoking was allowed, the US didn’t fully ban smoking until 2000, there are still planes from the 1970’s in service
* many countries didn’t fully ban smoking until much later (Cuba in 2014, China in 2017)
* government regulations often required ashtrays and did not change immediately
* if you do smoke illegally, as some people always will, they’d rather you not set something on fire with a surreptitiously disposed of cigarette
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