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Royal Jordanian Airlines Bans Use of Electronics After US Voices Security 'Concerns' (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Royal Jordanian airlines banned the use of electronics on flights servicing the U.S. after government officials here expressed concerns. Details are scant, but CNN is reporting that other carriers based on the Middle East and Africa may be affected as well. The news broke when Royal Jordanian, a state-owned airline that operates around 500 flights a week, posted this cryptic notice on its Twitter feed. The ban, which includes laptops, tablets, and video games, but does not include smartphones or medical devices, is effective for Royal Jordanian flights servicing New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Montreal. A spokesperson for Royal Jordanian was not immediately available for clarification. Meanwhile, CNN is reporting that Royal Jordanian may not be the only carrier affected by these new security provisions. Jon Ostrower, the network's aviation editor, just tweeted that as many as 12 airlines based in the Middle East and Africa could be impacted. A Saudi executive also tweeted that "directives by U.S. authorities" could affect passengers traveling from 13 countries, with the new measure set to go into effect over the next 96 hours.
This probably has nothing to do with the fact that several middle-east based carriers have been consistently highly rated by passengers and, with their top notch service and low fares luring plenty of international travelers away from legacy US carriers.
Royal Jordanian Airlines has just raised the inflight entertainment system fee to $100.
Your emails have cost us yet again. Everything that's gone wrong for over a year has been ALL HILLARY'S FAULT!
Isn't part of the United States. I would hate to think that there was a bowing to US pressure over this. Considering the short sightedness of this though I'm not sure what to think. You can't use a tablet but you can use a smartphone? That on it's own makes no sense.
Seriously, what the living fuck?
It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
So, it's definitely 100% bullshit with no chance of possibly having a reasonable explanation.
That's RAYCISS!!!
Jon now reporting that Royal Jordainian has deleted its tweet.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Figured.
It was my first guess, after a manual trigger using depressurization switches in plastic tubes.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Do they not understand that Montreal is in a different country?
Jordan is one of the few beacons of hope in the Middle East - An American ally that is peaceful and provides a real example of what a mideast success story could be (if you haven't visited Jordan I encourage it - Great country).
But sure America, go and screw with them, because FREEDOM.
checked baggage damage / stolen laptops not covered or they only payout $200 for a damaged $2000+ apple laptop?
Mooslims must fly nekkid.
The difference between me and you hopefully will not continue to be that I am telling the truth and you continue to copy. Copying is wrong.
C'mon now. HRC was a terrible candidate, but against Trump? She was Churchill. I honestly can't believe the later was a viable option for half the country.
Half the country is very concerned with job loss due to immigration (and for some, increased crime in their neighborhoods)...
A lot of people are concerned about job loss and mistakenly blame immigrants. The fact is our economy would be much stronger tomorrow if we legalized everybody and made immigration easier. The United States has shifting demographics that are pushing it toward an older population and that ultimately will kill its GDP unless it encourages significant immigration. Bring people in legally so you can decide who you let in, and also by legalizing people who are already here you help make the playing field level and take illegal immigrants out of the gray market economy.
Out of all those electronics, they let smartphone go? If they're going to ban, they should've at least ban smartphone.
At least doing so make us proud when we use Etch A Sketch on the plane... how to turn this thing off again?
Based on the fact that they allow certain (small) electronics, as another posted noted it may be some sort of physical attack.
Maybe someone has figured out to (expertly) disguise small explosives as batteries? I don't know how current X-ray technologies (in the airport) work but maybe they can't easily distinguish between a lithium ion battery and an explosive? So if you were able to package them in the same volume and then wire them so that they "look" on the scanner like batteries then they would pass that review.
While it might be possible to detect this alteration by asking the passenger to prove that they are, indeed, unaltered electronic devices by turning them on, I can image a decent electronics guy could leave in one small battery so it could be powered on briefly (it would probably have to be wired differently to provide the necessary voltage). In addition this would cause the (already long?) delays to become longer as passengers would have to open them and boot up the devices (and afterwards shut them down and repack them). I think there may be neutron(?) based scanners that can detect the nitrogen compounds in explosives but I believe they are large and very expensive and would again add delays.
What's interesting is that (so far) this is not a worldwide prohibition but thankfully (at least for people not planning on traveling to and from the middle east/africa) restricted to just that area. So the ability to do this possible physical "hack" is only for now in the middle east and they only think people heading to the U.S. (and not say Europe) will use it. It must by some pretty specific intel to generate this kind of warning. Maybe the security measures/machines in that part of the world are not capable of reliably discriminating these attacks. Then again some restrictions, as other posters have mentioned, only apply to travel to the U.S., for example at Taipei's airport you must go through an additional screening step when on flights bound to the U.S. so perhaps it's just due to more heightened security awareness/paranoia on the American end.
It has nothing to do with an attack. The US sent a directive to a bunch of carriers based in the Mid-East and Africa that said any flights coming into or going out of the US had to fly with those restrictions. It doesn't apply to other carriers going to those places and I'm guessing it applies to those carriers going to other places. It appears to be more of a business attack to help out US airlines rather than anything based on safety.
That's based on the limited amount of information that has leaked out but with the current government in the US the above would not surprise me in the least.
Maybe someone has figured out to (expertly) disguise small explosives as batteries?
TFA says only that they have "banned the use of electronics on flights servicing the US", (italics mine). It doesn't say that they've banned the presence of the devices. So either the article is poorly worded and unclear, or the ban has nothing to do with bombs masquerading as electronic devices.
This may be like the "take off your shoes at the airport" bullshit, in that it may have nothing to do with security. It may have everything to do with exercising control, establishing reflexive obedience to authority, and fostering acceptance of American dominance over people of all nationalities anywhere in the world. Just the type of behaviour that a certain kind of bully tends to engage in.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Ssssshhhhhh!!!!!
All planes to the US have to be empty with the pilot handcuffed to the controls. "Welcome to America!" sounds more and more like the mockery of "Arbeit mach frei!" Adolf Trump is at it again.
So, I read one news article here,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
Apparently they are banning electronic devices in the cabin due to the possibility of concealing explosives in them in "a way that is hard to detect". Ok, let's assume that is true. Question from me is, what difference does it make if it is in carry-on or checked baggage? Once it is on the plane, wouldn't an attacker be able to detonate it remotely if it is in checked baggage? Am I missing something here?
It just may be a gagging of the media.
Journalists like to type on something larger than a phone. Many journalists have fancy and expensive cameras, which sometimes go missing from checked luggage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/21/trump-wont-allow-you-to-use-ipads-or-laptops-on-certain-airlines-heres-the-underlying-story/?utm_term=.fe81fadb4606#comments
http://www.alpa.org/news-and-events/news-room/2017-03-16-alpa-joins-open-letter
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
It's a filthy polluted corrupt despotic place crawling with heavily-armed intolerant insane religious zealots.
But it has Disney World!
> It appears to be more of a business attack to help out US airlines
It will fail. The process at an airport is to check in with the airline, where the luggage is taken, and then go through security where they check your hand baggage. Security do not care which airline you are flying with and are likely to take all laptops and tablets away.