TravellingMan

According to one of the ME3, if your journey is to the US then you will be asked to check in your electronics at the first port of departure. So if you are flying KUL-DXB-JFK then your electronics will have to be checked in at KUL.

Now if you have two tickets; KUL-DXB and DXB-JFK they will probably force you to check in at the gate at DXB after going through the gate screening.

pushmyredbutton

That's sort of what I expected, but considering the hundreds(?) of outstations, I imagine security and enforcement will be spotty at best.

nomii

We need trip reports for each airport on if they allow Gate Check or just confiscate and throw away your ipad/laptop. There are many transit scenarios (seperate tickets, different airlines) where one can end up at the gate with a laptop.

TravellingMan

I dont think so. In my experience the minute they figure out you are flying to the US, they start hassling you for various things starting from passport/visa, your US address, baggage limits etc. They will just add this to the TOS and force you to check in everything at that location so that you cannot figure out who stole your stuff

TravellingMan

If they can through check in you for your flight to US after doing the necessary document check then they can also force you to check in your electronics irrespective of airline and transit (provided they are on teh same itinerary)

drewguy

<deleted>

Would lenses be included in the ban? (I realize bodies have value as well, but lenses often is where the money is).

ironmanjt

I don't see any way around gate screening. Otherwise, what is to prevent you to pick up a laptop in the transit area from someone who isn't traveling to the US and was allowed through with it?

Big_Foot

<deleted>. I have tons of classic, non-electronic lenses,
some of them are worth a lot. They are fully manual.
But most modern lenses are electronic... What a messed up situation,
I travel to take pictures and there are destinations you simply can't go
without connecting in the ME, like Seychelles for example.

RCyyz

The DHS notice specifically mentions electronic devices. Most lenses don't have batteries so they should be OK.

Now try explaining this to the gate agent who is merely trying to check people in to the flight under rules that are open to wide interpretation.

I certainly have no desire to check my lenses. Nor do I have any desire to check my iPad since all my books are on there and that's what I use to keep myself entertained during a flight. But I can't see the airlines doing anything else but enforcing the strictest interpretation of the DHS notice which means lenses will be where the iPads and laptops are - down in the hold.

techie

All carriers with direct flights are likely to be subject to this ban, even BA.

tlott

UK is not banning UAE or Qatar.
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/...-a7641796.html

Morland

As tlott says, the UK is not banning UAE and Qatar, but all airlines are banned for the other locations, including BA.

UK says max dimensions for a device are 16cm x 9.3cm x 1.5cm. Need to measure my Kindle when I get a chance.

notquiteaff

Right, but interestingly the U.K. list of countries is different than the US' list.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ipads-flights/

"Theresa May, the Prime Minister, announced that passengers will be barred from taking laptops into flights from Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The move will affect in-bound passengers from those countries on flights by UK carriers including British Airways, Easyjet, Jet 2, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thomson flights.

It will also affect those flying with foreign carriers including Turkish Airlines, Pegasus, Atlas Global, Egypt Air, Tunisair, Royal Jordanian and Saudia. "

Global321

No chance I surrender my laptop at my origin. I have an 7-hour flight to DOH and 9 hours on the ground before flying to the USA. (We are not checking bags.)

Agreed about the outstations. Why would an airport in Asia bother to verify a) if you have a connecting flight and b) if your second flight goes to the USA and 3) if you are connecting through a banned airport. They simply have no incentive to do so.

How would this work?


How would this work? I am not checking bags. Is the check-in agent going to search my bags? Never seen that before.

Good point.

BenA

From a practical standpoint, I recommend anyone who may be forced to check their laptop take two important steps:

1. Backup before you fly. Buy a large external hard disk or flash drive and use it to carry copies of important documents onboard with you. Flash drives and micro SD cards in particular are now available affordably in sizes up to 200GB which should be enough for most folks' working content. On Windows, unfortunately, there isn't a really easy backup solution - the one built into Windows is pretty lame. But if you are comfortable at a command prompt, the tool "robocopy" does an excellent job of mirroring a folder structure quickly and reliably.

Make sure to encrypt the external disk using BitLocker and a strong passphrase.

2. Encrypt your entire laptop drive. This sounds scary but is in fact super easy to do and you won't even notice a major difference in how your computer works. The Windows feature for this is called BitLocker and is pretty darn reliable; if your laptop has a Trusted Platform Module (most do), the encryption key will be stored inside its vault safely and securely. You can also choose to require a PIN at startup to boot the computer if you like.

(If your laptop doesn't have a TPM, you can actually use a USB key to store the credentials externally, but Windows doesn't make it easy to do that since it's a hassle; you'll need to change a few settings first.)

Either way, if you enable Bitlocker, make sure you make multiple backups of your recovery key. If you lose it, your data is well and truly gone forever. I recommend making at least two copies, one in somewhere easily accessible on the road (work email, cloud storage account you trust, etc.) and one somewhere apocalypse proof (paper in your home safe, USB key in your nightstand, etc.)

If you combine BitLocker with a strong account password, this gives you basically foolproof protection against a stolen laptop scenario and a huge amount of peace of mind. Will BitLocker stop a state actor? Maybe not, but it would take colossal amounts of resources and time; certainly multiple orders of magnitude more than it would if they could simply pop out your laptop's drive and read the clear, unencrypted contents.

(MacOS has equivalents for most of these features too, but I'm not as familiar with the details of how to enable them.)