The logical conclusion of all this is that in the foreseeable future laptops will be banned from the cabins of all flights, regardless of origin or destination. :/
(Of course, the decision to ban laptops on flights from Europe has not yet been finalised, so this is all still speculation at this point.)
Terrorists are not dumb, if laptops are banned from flights from Europe whey will use other flights, like domestic flights or flights coming from Canada.
I do wonder how many laptop bombs have endangered planes so far - vs. actual Li-ion battery fires.
Force laptops in the holds and watch planes crash when the inevitable battery fire happens. This policy will likely kill more people than the terrorist menace it is meant to protect against.
And that doesn't even consider the loss of business, because people simply won't fly without a laptop (or put it in the hold - considering how checked baggage is routinely treated). Not everyone is traveling for leisure and for business people a laptop is essential.
I don't understand why these bans are only for specific airlines. Maybe if the flights originate from specific airports which may have lax security. However the ban is also for flights to those destination originating from the US.
If there was a way to turn a laptop into a bomb I am sure the terrorist would just jump on a local US aircraft.
If true I'm kind of surprised that "they" have not banned all computers from planes. It only took one incompetent shoe-bomber to cause many fliers to have to remove their shoes for a decade.
Do you believe that our current rules would do anything at all to prevent someone from attacking flight control systems on the plane? You could easily have a device that looks just like a phone or tablet in your bag, or even in the pocket of your seat, which is actively performing the attack.
Not to mention that policing of the "no electronics" rule is spotty at best. I fly constantly and damn near every time, I end up with my media playing device in the pocket, with my headphones on listening to music for the entire flight, from takeoff to touch down. In the many dozens of flights I've taken, I've only once actually had to take out my headphones.
This is actually fairly rational. I mean, all this airport security stuff is stupid security theater. However, if you're going to do it, you should absolutely ban laptops.
If this is true (and I don't really believe it) then all electronic devices should be banned from the cabin and carried in the checked luggage AND flight critical systems should be designed to be robust against such interference in case there is a terrorist attack using a hidden electronic device designed to operate at many times the power.
At some point we are going to have to realise that terrorists are always going to want to target aircraft and just live with it. This ban makes no sense because $BAD_GUY can just via some intermediate airport with their iPad Bomb.
I flew Etihad from Sydney to Abu Dhabi last week. They warned transiting customers that phones and laptops must be charged up before passing airport security in the UK or US.
The TSA already requires that laptops and phones must be powered-on on demand to "prove that they're real". That's already a cybersecurity risk.
I'm relieved that the banned laptops doesn't include my 15" mid-2014 MacBook Pro, or my dad's hand-me-down 13" mid-2015 MacBook Pro that he generously gave to me last week after I helped him repair it.
Multiple folks in this thread have asked how the TSA is going to deal with this. The answer is: it won't. These laptops were banned as a "dangerous good" by the FAA. This is separate from the TSA's list of items banned as a security threat.
> The Transportation Security Administration also has rules on "prohibited items" that pose a security threat. Though they sometimes overlap, the TSA security rules are separate from the FAA dangerous goods safety rules discussed here.
"..business travelers assume they'll have access to their laptops on flights. A tech-free, or even a tech-lite flight isn't much of a flight at all in 2017. So by targeting our gadgets, the government can take an entire airline down."
"These three airlines, as well as the other airlines targeted in the order, are likely to lose a major amount of business from their most lucrative customers — people who travel in business class and first class. Business travelers are disproportionately likely to want to work on the plane — the reason they are prepared to pay business-class or first-class fares is because it allows them to work in comfort. These travelers are unlikely to appreciate having to do all their work on smartphones, or not being able to work at all. The likely result is that many of them will stop flying on Gulf airlines, and start traveling on U.S. airlines instead.
As the Financial Times notes, the order doesn’t affect only the airlines’ direct flights to and from the United States — it attacks the “hub” airports that are at the core of their business models. These airlines not only fly passengers directly from the Gulf region to the United States — they also fly passengers from many other destinations, transferring them from one plane to another in the hubs. This “hub and spoke” approach is a standard economic model for long-haul airlines, offering them large savings. However, it also creates big vulnerabilities. If competitors or unfriendly states can undermine or degrade the hub, they can inflict heavy economic damage."
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