Carry-on gadget ban makes little sense

The ban on carrying laptops and iPads or even cameras and DVD players from specific destinations into the US and UK on specific airlines may seem like a security measure based on confidential intelligence gathering, but it is not a very convincing argument.

For one, most of the technology is replicated in mobile phones which are permitted on board as carry-on. A high-end phone engages in most of the activities offered on an iPad. What is it a phone cannot do that an iPad does?

Western aviation safety experts are explaining it away on the grounds that mobile phones can carry little explosive whereas laptops can carry much more. They harken back to the Somalian incident where a laptop loaded with explosives blew a hole in a Daallo airlines jet. Fair enough, but having 200 laptops in the cargo hold is scarcely a contribution to peace of mind.

By the same token, while the use of lithium batteries is being severely discouraged, the placement of an exponentially high number of these items in the baggage hold cannot be a

comforting sensation. You could have several hundred in suitcases and bags and we do recall UPS Flight 6 in 2010, a 747 Freighter that crashed because of a lithium fire in the hold.

Even Boeing had to face the heat when the 787 Dreamliner had incidents of smoke and fire from its lithium-ion batteries. The FAA has practically admitted that these batteries have an incendiary potential that is more than mildly disturbing.

Consequently, encouraging larger amounts of lithium in the load defies logic. And while one might argue it is better to be safe than sorry, a laptop or camera ‘bomb’ in the hold that could be activated by a timer could be just as devastating. At least carry-on luggage gets checked and a device that has been fixed has a stronger chance of being detected on the X-ray machines and by observing passenger profiles and upping vigilance through shared databases.

Also, if it is a question of security then the exercise is hugely cumbersome and defeats itself because merely selecting specific routes and carriers is scarcely a deterrent. Anyone wishing to engage in any untoward act can take off on another carrier from another country not on this list.

Why not hop into a European airport on any of these airlines, and take a break and take a carrier from an Alliance then proceed onwards to the UK or across the pond to an American city with laptop in hand. Go to Asia and come in via the Orient.

So unless every airline flying into the States or the UK was subject to a blanket ban on bringing electronics in the cabin regardless of the point of departure the effort makes little sense in terms of safety or security.

There is also a wriggle of concern that with Emirates, Etihad and Qatar being the trinity of first class carriers that have caught the imagination of transatlantic passengers by their level of service, their presence on this list is a deliberate placement of a wrinkle in their comfort zone.

US carriers especially have found it impossible to match these airlines and their profiles and there have been tensions even though the row over Open Skies was supposedly resolved in mid-2016 when American, United and Deltas collectively charged the Gulf carriers for being unfairly subsidised. This has been proven wrong by the Gulf carriers again and again with concrete evidence to the contrary. The Obama administration stepped in and ended the matter without any sanctions or changes indicating that Open Skies would not be restricted.

But with the handing over to the Trump administration the element of ‘protectionism’ could well have been invited to the party in an effort to win back an edge for domestic carriers even if it means putting ‘walls’ on Open Skies.

Any way you look at it, selective banning of these gadgets and any other such actions do not contribute to any sense of comfort. That the cluster is from one part of the world also makes it arbitrary and biased without any proof of why.

In a sentence, the fight against terrorism cannot be unilateral and has to be a co-operative initiative.

From the point of view of the average passenger the drop in being separated from his laptop for 14 hours and more is immense and tangible. This is a stretch of time where actual work can be done inflight, speeches written, reports corrected, power point presentations spruced up. Entertainment is not always the first priority and high yield executive passengers would be extremely discomfited by such a limitation.

Is part of all this aimed at bruising the bottom line of certain trendsetting carriers?

Since this ban does not affect US carriers because they do not fly directly from these 10 chosen airports and only includes two British carriers, the way in which it has been imposed raises many questions but few answers except that the ‘threat of terrorist acts’ always shuts everyone up.

Difficult to see how all this will reduce any risk? (Bikram Vohra is a former editor

of Khaleej Times)