Travel is about to get even more aggravating.
I just received a BBC alert on my phone that the UK will be instituting an in-flight electronics ban similar to what the USA formally announced this morning.
As a reminder, the USA in-flight electronics ban includes non-stop flights to the USA from the following nations:
- Amman
- Cairo
- Istanbul
- Jeddah
- Riyadh
- Kuwait City
- Casablanca
- Doha, Qatar
- Dubai
- Abu Dhabi
And bans the following items in carry-on bags:
- laptop computers
- tablets
- cameras
- travel printers
- games bigger than a phone
Flight crews and medical equipment are excluded.
Differences Between UK and USA Bans
Although we do not have details yet, the BBC is reporting that the UK ban will vary slightly from the U.S. ban but the news is “obviously part of coordinated action with the US”.
The BBC sites a Somalia incident in February 2016 in which an attempt to down a flight was made with a laptop computer as one basis for this move. Seems a bit late, no?
Stay tuned for a formal announcement this afternoon–let’s hope that sanity prevails and somehow this ban will not be even worse than the USA ban. If the ban is as bad as expected, we will have another reason to avoid UK airports…
Top question on my mind: Will only Middle East carriers be targeted or will British Airways also be compelled to ban larger in-flight electronic devices?
If this blogger cared to engage brain before keyboard, he wouldn’t entitle the post “Monkey see, monkey do”. The UK and the US share the great bulk of their ME intelligence gathering and analysis. All this shows is that a) the stated purpose of this is security rather than protectionism annd b) either the implementation was leaked early before all the ducks were in a row or the specific timing was to obscure the key source.
Again, U.S. officials have stated the move was not based upon any specific or credible threat of an attack…
And you think they would necessarily tell us if there was? It’s not exactly the type of business where you want to telegraph to your opponents what you know and don’t know.
A terrorist attack would be a little more inconvenient for you, don’t you think? How about stop the prejudging about the validity of these security measures, as you are commenting from a position of complete ignorance to the actual threat. The anti-American, anti-Trump everything on these blogs is getting out of control.
US officials admitted there was no specific threat.
From the NY Times (not fake news)–
This is not anti-American or anti-Trump: the action itself is anti-American in my opinion.
WR, you are just as “ignorant” as you presume the blogger to be.
So, this cleverly enacted policy says that you must check your laptop, obviously hoping that the airline doesn’t lose it, and that will make us safer. Huh? They’re trying to sell us on the premise that checked luggage is intrinsically safer than carry on. If there are that many problems with the carry on system, it needs to be discontinued immediately for all flights for the security of all flyers. Further, why is checked luggage safer to begin with? To bring up yet another gaping flaw in what passes for logic here, does anyone truly think that some terrorist couldn’t manage to arrange a flight out of Europe, bypassing this ill conceived policy?
Well, I’m neither anti-American nor anti-Trump and I have to say that this particular policy seems to lack any sense whatsoever. If you’re concerned about a bomb camouflaged as a piece of electronic equipment, what’s the difference whether it’s in someone’s lap or in the cargo deck?
And, what a nightmare for the traveler, entrusting laptops, tablets and cameras to the baggage handlers! Not only are such items prone to breakage, but they’re a top target for theft – and that’s something not limited to airports in third-world countries. Lastly, I have to question the odds of this preventing a terrorist attack versus the odds of a runaway lithium battery reaction on the cargo deck from one of those electronic devices stored down there, perhaps under pressure from being on the bottom of the pile.
Admittedly, I don’t know what intelligence the government has that made them think that this was the thing to do. But, as a practical matter, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It causes 10 times more problems than it solves. Shaking my head…….
I could think of many reasons why the cargo hold may be less of a risk than the cabin:
1. positioning of the explosive will impact it’s destructiveness. A small explosive in the middle of the cargo hold may do minimal damage, but same explosive place against your window may do more.
2. ability to control (of course a timer would do this, but there could be other things that need to be controlled)
3. ability to link devices together for more concentrated destructive power (multiple laptops/devices, possibly from multiple passengers)
These are all reasonable possibilities, not from a security insider, but just from someone with basic engineering training and a mind not in constant partisan politics mode. Ask yourself: if the Obama admin was introducing this, would you be responding the same way? If you’re honest with yourself then you know you wouldn’t be.
The real nonsensical security policy is applying the same policies to a 22 year old Muslim male from Syria flying to the US as an 80 year old grandma flying from Des Moines to Minneapolis.
Sorry that it gets in the way of enjoying your heavily subsidized 1st class travel. I don’t know why anyone would want to transit through the ME anyway. How many active warzones and terrorist hotspots do you want to fly over and through anyway? No thanks.
Cargo holds are far stronger. El Al, for one, has reinforced the cargo holds to be able to withstand significant explosions. I’m sure they are not the only ones. It is also possible that it is not an explosives issue but electronic hacking/interference with aircraft controls.
I am sure the TSA will support a similar move domestically so they can stop blaming carry-on bags for the fact that they can’t screen to save their own lives.
Have you seen this?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFsOUbZ0Lr0
Not sure “Monkey See Monkey Do” is the best title to use for this post. You (fortunately) are not privy to the same information that the people who wrote the ban have access to. If my plane lands safely, then I don’t need to question being inconvenienced for 10 hours without my normal at-home luxuries
Not to be combative, but intelligence like where the WMDs in Iraq are?