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The US announced an electronics ban on flights from select Middle Eastern and African airports that US airlines happened to not serve back in March.
I was in Dubai when the ban was announced and was one of the first to have to check my electronics, including my Sony A6000 with wide angle and telepohoto lens, Mavic Pro Fly More Drone Bundle, and Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga. Etihad had a special box to check my items, so that they wouldn’t get damaged or pilfered. At least I bought the items on my AMEX 😀
The electronics ban is awful for businesspeople. Not only can’t you get any work done, but you risk losing your data and electronics whenever they get checked. It’s also bad news for families that rely on tablets to entertain kids on long flights.
I noted back then, to considerable controversy, how odd the ban was. I had to go through TSA security and pass a US customs preclearance facility in Abu Dhabi, but the US government didn’t trust their own agents to properly secure that airport. Somehow Nigeria, served by Delta and home to many terror threats, is not on the ban list.
Also odd was how we have been told for years never to check lithium-ion batteries under the plane, as baggage compartments aren’t equipped with lithium fire extinguishers, but now everything was being forced down there.
But the oddest part is that any terrorist can easily buy a connecting flight from the Middle East to the USA via Europe or Africa and be able to bring all electronics onboard. If that’s not a gaping loophole, I don’t know what is. Emirates even offers service from Dubai to NYC via Athens or Milan without the need to check electronics. Making a ban assuming that terrorists only know how to fly nonstop is just poorly implemented policy.
Supposedly the intelligence about using electronics to take down a plane originated from Israel. It’s telling that Israel itself hasn’t banned electronics on flights going from Amman, Cairo, or Istanbul nonstop to Tel Aviv.
At any rate, over the past month it seems like every day there has been rumors about a new ban, that might include flights from Europe to the US or all flights from abroad to the US. Delta even printed up a sign about a ban they presumed would go into effect and displayed it in the Cincinnati airport!
On Sunday, John Kelly, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, said that he might ban laptops on all flights to and from the US and other countries.
Politico reported today that there won’t be a ban for now. The European Union and the airlines have lobbied heavily against it.
Of course as long as electronics are allowed onboard flights from any other country to the US, it makes the Middle East electronics ban pointless. But then again it’s possible that the threat from a lithium fire in the baggage claim is a bigger issue than terrorism.
Ideally there should be a way to properly screen electronics so that we don’t need to balance the need to keep planes safe from terror and keep planes safe from lithium fires in the baggage claim. Otherwise there may come a time when we’ll be forced to fly without any of our possessions…or clothes.
Do you think the electronics ban should be or will be extended on more flights? Hit the comments!
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13 Comments On "The Expanded Electronics Ban Is On Hold…For Now"
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Gut yom tov!
Sorry to disagree with you.
To me safety is Paramount and it seems they have a strong concern that a terrorist group can re-appropriate the space in a large tablet or laptop so that what looks like a battery is still a dangerous substance. I believe any one of the hundreds of thousands of people that have spent any time doing technical work repairing iPads tablets and laptops can easily figure out how to do this with
@Moshe:
To you as well!
@Charles:
I’m not sure what exactly you’re disagreeing with.
I’m not saying point-blank there shouldn’t be a ban as I’m not privy to the intelligence. I’m pointing out the glaring inconsistencies that make the ban worthless.
If you’re willing to sacrifice some liberty for safety that’s fine, but at least do it right. The way this is being done accomplishes neither liberty nor safety.
@Charles:
So why hasn’t israel done anything if there is such a threat?
John Kelly also said on Fox News Sunday TSA might require all ppl to unpack their carry on and separate Food, Electronics and Papers
Lines at security might triple in result..
@so:
That’s definitely one of the many oddities at play. And nobody knows how to deal with terror threats better than Israel.
@Yoely:
Hopefully Pre-Check/Global Entry members won’t have to do that…
Sorry to disagree with you.
To me safety is Paramount and it seems they have a strong concern that a terrorist group can re-appropriate the space in a large tablet or laptop so that what looks like a battery is still a dangerous substance. I believe any one of the hundreds of thousands of people that have spent any time doing technical work repairing iPads tablets and laptops can easily figure out how to do this with the understanding that explosives are not impossible to come by.
Laptops do travel everyday in the luggage section of aircraft the main danger is when they travel as batteries alone because the densest of the flammable material is more dense than when you have some laptops interspersed with People’s Clothing.
It is my belief that the equipment that is used to screen luggage is more intense than the equipment used by TSA for screening of people and their included and baggage.
I have spent more than two decades traveling mostly transatlantic for business and while I was one of the first to carry laptops with me for business transatlantic and the laptops were really big in those days I can tell you I never found it necessary or useful to use my laptop during a flight.
In any event any argument that business people need laptops does not in any way Trump the safety Factor and for Airlines to argue that they want to ignore the risk because they make more money off certain business Travelers well it’s just not valid as an argument.
I will also throw in my opinion that while airlines are going hog-wild expanding business class and all that to get more full fare Business Class fares paid I suspected a huge amount of the space either goes of vacant or is used to trade in miles and Airlines might make more money if they flew smaller wide-body Jets and did not focus on having such a big business and first class section. I do realize that if the airline started to think like that it would be anathema to people like us that often use miles for business class or first class.
Please excuse random punctuation and grammatical mistakes as this was typed by voice on Android
@Charles:
Again, the point of the post was to point out the inconsistencies in the policy.
-Banning electronics from Abu Dhabi (which has US customs preclearance and allows passengers to arrive into JFK to connect to other domestic flights without going through security again) but not banning Nigeria makes no sense.
-Banning electronics on an Emirates flight from Dubai-JFK but not on Emirates flight from Dubai to JFK that makes a short stop in Milan makes no sense as the terrorist will just take the connecting flight option.
-Using Israeli intelligence to ban all electronics from Amman, Cairo, and Istanbul when Israel itself didn’t ban electronics, is also strange.
If you are pro-security at all costs, then surely you have to wonder why this ban wasn’t implemented on all flights from abroad by now. The loopholes are massive.
Regarding business and first class: Airlines make most of their profit off selling miles to banks. These guys clearly have the numbers and know what they’re doing.
@so:
I would venture a guess that Israel has better trained security agents who clearly realize that hundreds of people’s lives depend on the security of everything that gets onto the plane. I do not think it is feasible or possible to retrain every agent that the TSA and all the countries of the world are using.
As a simple example imagine that if an Israeli agent had a security concern and following up would cause the person to miss their plane I’m sure this has happened and continues to happen and there are workarounds that are done. Imagine if this happened at Newark Airport or any place in the USA imagine the outcry and the criticism and the jokes and all the cameras coming out and all the videos in YouTube.
@Charles:
The ban is only on flights departing from the Middle East to the US.
So unless Israel has agents working the security lines in Amman, Cairo, and Istanbul, your logic is as flawed as this ban is. My question is why does Israel allow electronics to be brought onto flights from those countries nonstop to Tel Aviv.
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-report/articles/2017-05-15/a-smarter-plan-for-airport-security-than-trumps-expanding-electronics-ban?src=usn_li
If they eventually decide to implement an electronics ban for all international flights departing from the US, to guard against some kind of threat that could be brought on board at a US airport, I struggle to see how they could justify *not* extending that ban to all domestic flights.
@Dan:
Happens to be that israel does have extra screening for flights from those airports to israel, but then again why is it only on direct flights? So it still doesn’t add up