Laptop ban not expected
Minister says overseas moves won’t sway NZ
Transport Minister Simon Bridges does not expect a big shift in New Zealand’s stance on laptops in aircraft cabins.
Australia is considering following the lead of Britain and the United States in banning equipment bigger than cellphones from certain flights departing from the Middle East and North Africa. There are signs that the US may extend the ban to flights departing from the European Union.
Bridges said that while the director of the Civil Aviation Authority was reviewing the policy and would make the final call, this country would not be overly swayed by what was happening internationally.
“The CAA director . . . is working his way based on the evidence but I don’t expect to see big lurches in our settings,” Bridges told the Herald. “We pride ourselves as being predictable and evidence-based in New Zealand.”
The US and Britain imposed bans in March, in response to unspecified terrorist threats. Britain excluded the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Morocco from the ban.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimates while existing curbs affect 350 US-bound flights per week, extending it to the 28 European Union states plus Switzerland, Norway and Iceland would impact a further 390 flights a day, or more than 2500 a week.
That would cost passengers US$655 million ($943m) in lost productivity, US$216m for longer travel times, and US$195m for renting loaner devices on board, it says.
Emirates has said the US ban has had a direct impact on consumer demand for air travel into the US and had an impact on profits.
Up to 65 million people a year travel between Europe and North America, many of them business t ravellers who rely on t heir electronics to work during the flight.
British pilots have warned there is a risk of catastrophic fires from the lithium batteries in laptops being stored in cargo holds. Bridges also referred to this. “The replacement in the carriage creates other risks,” he said.
IATA has expressed frustration at the process used by governments to put in place security measures.