Laptop Ban On Airlines? How Will This Affect The Travel Industry?

While aircraft maintenance technicians are busy putting in cleco pins and working on the riveting processes to ensure safety of the aircraft in for repairs, the government authorities are implementing some controversial rules involving the safety on flights. This refers to the laptop ban on trans-Atlantic flights from Europe to the US.

Many travelers are worried about such an impending policy because electronic devices such as laptops have already become part of travelers’ life. When looking for flight schedules and updating their itineraries, travelers consider their laptops to be their best friends wherever they go. With this policy, there will be a lot of adjustments that they need to make, and this might discourage a lot of travelers visiting the US.

What Is The Reason For The Ban?

In the past, electronic devices were controlled and regulated to a certain degree that would provide passengers some breathing space. Such devices could be carried by passengers, as long as they turned them off inside the airplane, so as not to create some technical interference in the pilot’s cabin.

As time went by, issues about the use of lithium-based batteries have alarmed the government authorities because these batteries have had a lot of cases of explosions. Unfortunately, almost all laptop devices use lithium-based batteries.

If such explosion took place during a flight, this would endanger the lives of the passengers. There have also been a lot of plane crashes recently that have not been completely investigated, and there is a theory that some of these crashes were caused by such explosions.

As a result, laptop ban has become prevalent. However, the ban is not ubiquitous, and there are countries that still allow passengers to bring and use their laptops inside airplanes.

Will the Ban Affect the Travel Industry?

There has been a survey commissioned for a certain travel company Holiday Extras, which was curious about the effect of the ban. In the survey, there were 3,600 people who were asked questions. One of six people expressed that they would want to bring their laptops when they are traveling a long distance.

If we analyze the survey, around 16% of those who were surveyed did not approve the ban. This is not a significant number as there are more than 80% of them who didn’t care about the ban.

According to Travelport, there have been one million passengers who booked flights from the UK to US in the period between January and March 2017, and one of every four passengers was booked for business class. This seems to show that there is little to no effect in the number of flights bound to US despite the ban.

Is The Ban Rational?

In terms of security, there is no question people should cooperate, but at what cost? So far, the ban has no significant effect on the travel industry in general, but when the Trump administration policy of extending the ban to all European flights to the US takes place, that could be a different story.

According to the former Aviation Advisor to the Transport Select Committee Laurie Price, “With the current administration’s agenda, I fear that is only likely to get worse.”

Final Thoughts

Nowadays, people consider their electronic devices such as laptops and smartphones to be part of their lives. However, if they become life-threatening, there is no reason not to set them aside just for a while. Until this problem is dealt with in its entirety this extreme regulation may also create another problem.