The conventional way used to change runlevel using /etc/inittab has become obsolete with Redhat Enterprise Linux version 7. As a result any Linux system using systemd system management daemon now relies on systemctl command to change runlevel or to be more precise to change the target. As a result any edits of /etc/inittab file will not take effect on RHEL 7.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-change-a-runlevel-on-rhel-7-linux-system