No airplane laptop ban yet, more talks

Brussels — Talks on a proposed U.S. ban on laptops and tablets in flights from Europe ended Wednesday with no ban — and a promise of more talks and better intelligence sharing.

For days now, European Union officials have been hoping for details on the threat that prompted the proposed ban — the same details that U.S. President Donald Trump discussed with Russian diplomats at the White House last week.

The airline industry came out against the proposal in a strongly worded letter that said it would cause a severe downturn in trans-Atlantic air travel and cost travelers more than a billion dollars in lost time.

On Wednesday, in a secure room in Brussels, officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the European Union swapped information about threats involving air travel. An official who followed the talks said the ban was “off the table” for now. He spoke on condition of anonymity to release details of the sensitive negotiations.

They also shared details about their aviation security standards and detection capabilities, and agreed to meet again in Washington next week “to further assess shared risks and solutions for protecting airline passengers, whilst ensuring the smooth functioning of global air travel,” according to a joint statement.

The White House has defended Trump’s decision to share classified information involving an Islamic State group terror threat related to the use of laptops on aircraft with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador.

The proposed electronics ban would create logistical chaos on the world’s busiest air travel corridor — as many as 65 million people a year travel between Europe and North America on nearly 400 daily flights, many of them business travelers who rely on the devices to work during flight.

Such a ban would dwarf in size the current one, which was put in place in March and affects about 50 flights a day from 10 cities, mostly in the Middle East.

The International Air Transport Association, or IATA, which represents 265 airlines, wrote to both the EU and the U.S. State Department on Tuesday to oppose the proposed ban, which it said would deeply affect the economy and cause the equivalent of $1.1 billion in lost time to passengers.

There is also the question of the relative safety of keeping a large number of electronics with lithium batteries, which have been known to catch fire, in the cargo area. IATA proposed more in-depth pre-flight screening rather than forcing passengers to give up their electronics.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 265 airlines, said the ban would deeply affect the economy and cause the equivalent of $1.1 billion in lost time to passengers.