NickP 1K

I'm somewhat seeing the same, we will see some form of a ban near term with a longer term approach of 100% PED screening where there will need to be limits to what the security screening operations can handle.

Only issue right now is most people I see have three devices: Notebook, Tablet and Phone. If they push this to two then people will need to travel differently than before.

MSY-MSP

I have given this a lot of thought. I probably could drop to a phone and a laptop. The only thing that would probably change is that i would up my iPhone to a plus for the larger screen. With a laptop and a phablet i could do about 99.9% of what i need to do on a trip. Without a laptop i am close to 10%

Fredrik74

If this is true then there is no urgent security threat.

You can't seriously expect anyone to believe there's an urgent threat to aviation security and yet see the country pushing the hardest refuse to implement measures against the threat.

MSY-MSP

Hammer meet nail....

Yep. The risk exists. It is not urgent. That is exactly why you are seeing what is occurring. However, from what i have heard and read, they will be there in the next say 6-12 months. So getting ahead of that curve makes sense. Force them to plan again. Not that we like the end result, but that is the way the world will work for the forseeable future.

richarddd

There are about 24,000 commercial flights a day. https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/

If implemented for domestic flights, it's likely many people will choose to drive rather than fly, increasing auto deaths, but no one seems to care about that. Similarly, no one seems to care about the risks of attacks on airport security lines. There are many ways to decrease deaths that are much cheaper than increasing airplane security.

wco81

So even if they can't take a bomb hidden in a laptop, they can just blow it up at the airport, either at a crowded baggage check-in counter or at an even more crowded and dense security checkpoint.

So they're discounting the fire risk from putting all those devices in the cargo hold?

CaptainMiles

MSY-MSP, thanks for another great and thoughtful post.

You mention the catering cart, I will mention the duty-free. Who knows where all those shrink-wrapped items came from and what's in them? Or how that cart may have been tempered with or switched before loading onto the aircraft. The duty-free cart is great because the crews don't touch it and it can't be unsealed and opened until in international airspace, well at altitude and over water where damage can be most dramatic.

GrayAnderson

I have been surprised for many years that we haven't seen an attack on an airport security line yet (at least in the US...the only such attack I know of was the Istanbul attack, and it was one of the deadlier terror attacks outside of places like Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years). I won't list them here but there are some airports that I'm familiar with where the security setup is basically a deathtrap if a team of attackers were to start shooting. In some cases you could have the people disperse into the terminal but in others you've got effective dead ends because of the way the airport transport system is designed. Of course, this also goes for any sort of security-related bottleneck. FWIW I remember this first coming to mind on a trip something like nine or ten years ago when I observed a massive crowd at an airport over Thanksgiving weekend.

GrayAnderson

Here, a policy solution would be to simply change that specific rule...but that's a relatively easy fix. The worst part of that, though, is that you've often got flammable whiskeys and the like in the mix, so a relatively small firebomb would get you a lot of, please pardon the pun, bang for your buck.

notquiteaff

How about Brussels last year? Maybe not specifically a security line, but does it matter whether it is the departure hall or the security line? Airports are places where many people mill around with large suitcases.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Brussels_bombings

Regarding duty free being a risk... discontinuing DF sales onboard is not a big sacrifice for anyone it seems.

http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler....ional-flights/

United Airlines said earlier this week that it plans to stop offering duty-free items for sale on international flights at the end of March.

The move comes as little surprise: American Airlines ended duty-free sales in early 2015 and Delta Air Lines discontinued its duty-free program in the summer of 2014.

ashill

You've obviously never flown as a rank and file government employee if you think they get special treatment. Their employer, being one of the largest purchasers of commercial airline tickets, has negotiated very good bulk, fully flexible fares on many routes, but those fares come with unique restrictions (e.g. full Y fares that are nevertheless non-upgradable or have upgrade restrictions on some carriers). And they certainly don't get special treatment at security or on board other than being eligible to apply for pre-check and earn elite status like anyone else. In fact, the contract fares often make it impossible for them to concentrate their flying on one carrier, so even quite frequent government fliers can wind up with no elite status.

I certainly agree that there shouldn't be an exception for elected officials, but I think one is quite unlikely anyway. That said, if you think this ban is a terrible idea, you should certainly share your opinion with your Federal elected officials.

wco81

Can you quantify this threat? I know there are suppose to be expert bomb makers among AQ or other terrorist groups.

But how many can make a bomb out of a PED that is able to evade detection?


Then also quantify the threat of fire from putting all these devices with lithium batteries in the cargo hold?


Airports around the world seem to have different policies about screening. Some require shoes off, some don't. Some are very stringent about electronics. At BCN, they had me remove my lenses, camera, iPad, etc. into separate trays.

At MUC, they had me take lenses out of a case, so they could make sure they could see through all the way.

But these were outliers in terms of how strictly and aggressively they screened.

That suggests these different airports quantify these risks differently than airports in other countries, including the US.

I think the inconsistency is part of the reason people are skeptical, not just between different airports in different parts of the world, but even in the same airports over time. For instance, when the iPad first came out, they stopped requiring it to be taken out, but over time, they're now requiring it to be pulled -- again, not at all airports but many.

GrayAnderson

First of all, I think a medical device exception is going to be shoehorned in. If nothing else, the ADA is likely to trump TSA/DHS rules du jour. With that said, I'll hit these in order:

(1) This is at least theoretically feasible. What I think you'd see in the long(er) term is airlines coming up with some way to interface between IFE systems and cell phones (you have two cell phone families at the moment) so that you can at least theoretically do non-sensitive work in J/F.

(2) This seems feasible, though you're going to run into issues of legitimately needed extra electronics (e.g. second cell phones). My guess is that you'd basically need to note the extra phone on your reservation and go through a good deal of BS. There's also going to be the issue of extra batteries, chargers, etc.

(3) The way I see it, depending on the definition of "electronics" 3 is a total non-starter. Ignoring the medical device rule above, my suspicion is that the business community would revolt, and if this were implemented by one or two countries as a stand-alone I could actually see airlines responding by surrendering their operating certificates in that country (since the falloff in traffic would probably be stunning). If you want to put a bullet in the head of short-to-intermediate-haul domestic air travel, this is the way to do it.

(4) This is a mixed bag. It's sort-of feasible...but I could also see a few carriers taking a decidedly "casual" approach to this in J/F vs Y. I'm reminded of some of the no-using-the-bathroom stuff post-9/11, too.

(5) This is feasible (and probably the least intrusive) but I can see all hell breaking loose in re discount carriers being forced to man desks. There's also a very real risk here that you end up with carriers seriously half-assing it (or indeed just handing out the stickers in most cases)...and doing so would actually be rational behavior (it would be cheaper for the "Big Four" to just eat a few million dollars per year in fines than to actually man the desks properly). Depending on how the stickers work, too, what you'd likely see is Johnny Jihadi moving a sticker from one device to another or finding a way to fake the sticker. I see this devolving back to the TSA's hands pretty fast. Full screening at security is more feasible than doing it at check-in.

(6) I sense this being a complete cluster-you-know-what. I have to presume that the total number of devices would be linked to the total number of seats on the plane, but presuming that this triggers requiring a "cell phone reservation" you're going to have all sorts of problems when Junior gets his first cell phone /after/ Mom and Dad make their reservations to go to Disney World. Basically this turns into an incomeptently-implemented and highly inconvenient version of (2).

(7) This will run into real problems insofar as medication goes (e.g. some people /have/ to take medication on a set cycle that is shorter than a TATL flight or have to have meds with each meal), and it'll probably force some cabin redesigns go.

(8) I agree that this the most feasible. My guess is that there's a push to somewhat "generously" interpret "personal item" to cover a mid-sized backpack...but I can see this being made to work with some massaging.

(9) See (7). This might be the most overkill-ish of them all (people literally not being able to bring a book on a flight over two hours seems likely to cause a revolt).

Basically, a few of these options are so extreme that I think the airlines would have no choice but to fight back. (3) is the most obvious, to the point that it would probably trigger a wholesale blowup from the hospitality industry writ large.

Edit: One other thought as a variant on some of the above would be that a less-restrictive standard gets applied to Pre-Check/Global Entry pax. That would be utter hell on the airlines (though I suspect that the airlines are going to want to wash their hands of figuring out who is supposed to have what) but in the long run less disruptive on them.

TomMM

Shouldn't be that difficult. They can just not allow devices through TSA checkpoints. No different that liquids and other banned items. This also allows for an easy device ban on domestic flights.

notquiteaff

That would be "interesting" for connecting passengers. In theory we have a similar problem with different standards between airlines for carry on bag sizes and weight limits, but in practice that's rarely enforced (e.g. connecting in FRA from UA to a LH flight).

Now I arrive on a carrier with my three devices and then get told that on the connecting flight only two are allowed?

And again, who is doing all the searching at the gates? With what equipment? What is that going to do to minimum connection times? Searches at the central security checkpoint are for obvious reasons not very useful to implement a "number of devices" based restriction.