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Working around the laptop ban

Qatar Airways is offering loaner laptops to premium passengers. (Image: Qatar Airways)

If you can’t bring your own laptop or tablet into the cabin for a very long flight, would you accept a loaner?

That’s the strategy some carriers are adopting in the wake of the so-called “laptop ban” imposed by the U.S. and U.K. governments on non-stop flights from several airports in the Middle East and Africa. The ban bars passengers from carrying any electronic device larger than a smartphone into the passenger cabin.

First, Abu Dhabi-based Etihad decided to offer loaner iPads and free Wi-Fi starting April 2 for first class and business class passengers on flights to its six U.S. gateways.

Qatar Airways then went a step further, buying up a supply of loaner laptops that will be made available on the aircraft to U.S.-bound business class passengers starting next week. “Customers will be able to download their work on to a USB before stepping on board to pick up where they left off,” the airline said. Qatar is also offering all passengers one hour of free in-flight Wi-Fi on U.S.-bound flights, or a special rate of $5 for a connection for the full duration of the flight.

Emirates’ president said that his carrier is also considering the use of loaner laptops for premium passengers.

Turkish Airlines and others will let customers check devices at the gate. (Photo: San Francisco International Airport)

Both Qatar and Emirates are letting U.S.-bound passengers keep using their tablets and laptops right up to boarding, so they don’t have to pack them in their checked luggage. Devices will be collected at the gate, flown in the hold, and returned at the destination. Turkish Airlines has also adopted procedures for checking electronic devices at the gate.

The affected airlines are not alone in worrying about the impact that the ban could have on their business. The International Air Transport Association – the leading trade organization for the world’s airlines – called on governments “to urgently find alternatives” to the device ban. The group said the ban seemed misguided and poorly conceived.

“The current measures are not an acceptable long-term solution to whatever threat they are trying to mitigate. Even in the short term it is difficult to understand their effectiveness. And the commercial distortions they create are severe,” said IATA director general Alexandre de Juniac.

“With the measures now in place, our passengers and member airlines are asking valid questions. Why don’t the US and the UK have a common list of airports? How can laptops be secure in the cabin on some flights and not others, including flights departing from the same airport? And surely there must be a way to screen electronic equipment effectively? The current situation is not acceptable and will not maintain the all-important confidence of the industry or of travelers. We must find a better way. And Governments must act quickly,” said de Juniac.

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Comments

  1. I generally avoid googling “explosives” and “body cavities” 🙂

    Jeff, I absolutely respect your right to have an opinion, and I try to be open-minded enough to read through what others post here in an attempt to improve my understanding of a situation, or to better understand the reasoning behind varying opinions.

    I am puzzled by one aspect of your comment. If Mexico has such bad security, and we haven’t seen a Mexico (-directioned) issue, aren’t the simplest conclusions then that the problem is either smaller than we believe and/or is being handled effectively at the points of departure? The “two oceans” hypothesis seems lacking in relative merit.

    Just using Occam’s Razor; I might be wrong, and once again I respect your right to hold an opinion.

  2. The Administration announced on Saturday additional details about the limitations announced weeks ago concerning transportation of electronic devices larger than a smartphone onboard flights from certain carriers and regions.

    While reactions from travelers to the limitations have been mixed — with liberal traitors expressing the view that the ban is a veiled commerical attack on the large Middle-East-based airlines that are gobbling up the sought-after business traveler revenue, and right-minded patriots stating the obvious view that the ban is about keeping America and Americans safe from potential harm — a spokesperson from the Administration stated that it was felt “we needed to do something to ensure that hard-working American businesspeople can continue making America greater inflight, while at the same time limiting the possibility that foreigners, whose sole aim is to destroy our way of life, can succeed in their nefarious and deadly schemes to harm American lives and American interests wherever they might be or wherever we say they exist”.

    When asked to clarify what the jingoist statement actually meant, and what the additional details actually were, the spokesperson announced that “passengers scheduled to board the flights in question will be provided at the gate with a printed document called the ‘Boarding And Cargo Onboard Notification’. This notification will be printed on a specially-developed paper-like material called ‘rindus porcus’, and will use all-natural, organic, antibiotic-free heme-based inks. The document will be in a rectangular strip-like shape. Passengers will be instructed to read and then consume the document. Passengers will be allowed to request additional copies. Those passengers who willingly comply will be permitted to keep their electronic devices. Passengers who refuse to comply will have their electronic devices confiscated, and provided to explosive-screening dogs for use in detection and housebreaking training”.

    The spokesperson concluded by stating that the Administration “recognizes the diligence, dedication, and sacrifices of the Great American Businessperson, as s/he travels around the globe bringing our way of life to the dark places, with nary a thought or complaint about the lack of lie-flat seats, substandard champagne, or crowded pre-flight lounges”. The spokesperson felt that “it is just a matter of time before we institute Americans-only flights so that neither productivity, comfort, or safety are compromised”.

  3. The complete carry on ban is coming. I can smell it. Security has not advanced. I have stated before until a general passenger can go through security with shoes on and a quart of liquid there is a security problem. A bigger issue is transporting explosive devices in body cavities (check any internet explisive site and the sky is the limit with practice). If security cannot tell there are explosives in a laptop or tablet 16 years after 9/11 we have a problem. This hasn’t surfaced in the last 90 days but is being hammered due to the lack of a game plan in the past 8-10 years. It isn’t just a Middle East issue. We have been spared because of two oceans. I’m suprized I hasn’t been a Mexico issue also with how piss poor their security is but I go back to the oceans as juvenile as that seems. I rarely use my laptop on the flight but the thought of checking it is unacceptable. My laptop is how I make a living troubleshooting industrial Programable Logic Controllers (PLC). Shipping is is not possible due to the lithium battery restrictions. This past week at the ATL a police officer forgot to take there service weapon out of a carry-on bag and got through security. We have a big issue. Big issue.

  4. If it gets worse, we’ll all have to embrace cloud computing. Keep all our work files in the cloud to be accessed by loaners from airlines and hotels when we are on the road. Not fun.

  6. Personally I think the, “I can’t use my laptop,” businessperson excuse is WAY overblown. I could count on one hand the number of business-people actually using a laptop. And the loaner-laptop is likely to catch-on for the impacted airlines. And this isn’t TSA’s fault, it’s ISIS, who has obtained airport security screeners and is/was attempting to develop a workaround to get a laptop bomb on a plane.

  7. It is bad. I can tell you that I would likely be forbidden to check my work laptop in my checked luggage. So far I only have one personal flight booked on Turkish, but I take Emirates when I fly to India for work, and I’m curious how they’ll develop a workaround. I thought Etihad was exempt since they had a secure enough TSA portal in Abu Dhabi to permit laptops in the cabin?

  8. This is a nightmare. What happens if TSA decides to do it in the states? First of all my computer is my life and the last thing I am going to do is check my computer in my luggage, to get banged up and who knows what. Of course we could buy a shock-proof case to transport it, but do you trust that it will be there when you are. On top of that, you couldn’t lock the case so what happens if someone steals it???

    For businessmen they won’t fly if they can’t secure their computer, I know that I would be that way. I am going to Augusta tomorrow for the Masters and if the ban was on I would drive the 650 miles.

    I bet just about everyone that reads this blog is in the same crappy boat on this.

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