My wife and I recently flew RJ from AMM to MAD in J, and found the service, seating, and food to be outstanding, and the AVOD to be very nice (an A321). Overall a lovely flight, but with one anomaly....every hour or so there was strong, acrid cigarette smoke emanating from the cockpit. My wife asked the female J flight attendant about the recurring smoke, but received a blank stare in response. We were both requested to fill out passenger surveys, and both of us noted this onboard smoking as the only less than satisfactory part of the RJ experience.[Minutes before landing we noted two gentlemen not in uniform exiting the cockpit, presumably security personnel, and speculated that these might have been the smokers.]

I'm wondering whether cockpit smoking is a common occurrence on RJ or was truly an anomaly. Thanks in advance!

I have never had this experience on any of my RJ flight. But I wouldn't be surprised if the people exiting the cockpit where not security personnel.

Just flew RJ to CDG from HKG via AMM. Was in Business Class, yes the pilots smoked on every leg. I loved it on the leg from CDG-AMM as they made the announcement about not smoking you could very clearly see and smell the cig some wafting from the cockpit. Classic!

havin worked as a flight ops officer/turnaround officer, i can conclude that RJ pilots arent the ony ones smoking chimneys

So are they allowed to smoke on US bound flights? Sorry, but the cockpit is the last place I want to see smoke coming from.