Will The Electronic Ban Change Your Travel Plans

Thee U.S. Department of Homeland Security could soon extend its electronics ban to flights to and from Europe.
Laptops, Kindles, tablets anything larger than a cellphone.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-laptop-ban-flights-explained

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice

The why's

Yes, I think I will think twice before packing my electronics in a checked luggage that is thrown around like a ball and baggage handlers can have a free for all looking inside of your luggage, thus when getting to your destination with no electronics or broken electronics.

I too will think twice about travel, given this potential ban. What if you are travelling for a short time, and have only a carry on? What then?

You will be without your computer, tablet and Kindle. These are all going to be banned if it passes. They will still let you take a phone on, but it is only a matter of time until they will mess that up. the airlines are very concerned about the lithium batteries in the electronics being thrown around and stored all together in the cargo area. A fire would be impossible to put out in the stowed luggage area.

So much for business travel, which constitutes a great percentage of the airlines customers.

Right. It is the new administration in the U.S. that is planning to put on the ban. I think theft will be a big problem with checked electronics. I had a neighbor who checked 10 DVDs from Canada to Mexico. they were gone when he got his luggage. If his computer would have been in there, the DVDs would have arrived and the computer gone. He is pretty sure the DVDs got stolen during a flight change in Phoenix.

Well, I go to Europe ....as well as the Middle East, SE Asia, South Asia, West Asia.... and of course in and out of Mexico. I can forgo my laptop, but can't live without my iPad .. it's just not possible. I know the airlines are very concerned... potential for fires, but also just a further reduction of passengers into the US.

We have an iPad but traveling we found out we needed a smart phone, as there are things you cannot do on an iPad that you can do on and iPhone. More and more things are needing be done on a mobile phone. Probably the time will come when printed boarding passes will be obsolete and you will have to download your boarding pass on your phone.Perhaps it's time to not take the iPad if the ban occurs and get a smart phone. You will be able to do everything on the phone and more than the iPad. It is just a smaller screen. I hope the ban doesn't happen, but be prepared and get a phone. I was trying to download a text icon on my iPad, but you cannot text from a tablet. You can only text to a phone number which is a mobile phone and you cannot text from a tablet to a phone since the tablet is not a phone, but a computer.. You can email from a tablet, but not text. Also on an iPad you have to have wi-fi and a phone you don't as long as you have a plan or minutes on your phone. Then you can use the cell towers.

I do have a high end smartphone duo.. with two chips, Mexican and US....but I still live on my iPad ... my phone is just too small for some things... and I think this regulation is absurd.

Right. We find the iPad much easier to read and use, however, there are many more things you can do on a phone than an iPad, so we were forced to get a smart phone for our traveling. We had a dumb phone but it just didn't cut it any more, so it is in the drawer with our other dumb phones. I was taught on a manual type writer and a manual crank adding machine. They were so easy. These smart things are hard for us more mature people !

Maybe they should think about banning certain people

lakeside7 wrote:Maybe they should think about banning certain people

Like the guy who wants to impose these travel bans?

Might be a good business opportunity to rent laptops out at each airport. Load them with all the usual business programs. People can carry their data on USB sticks or get it from the cloud.

IE....Business man flies into Chicago, rents laptop for say $10 per day, turns it in on his way back home.

CanuckBob wrote:Might be a good business opportunity to rent laptops out at each airport. Load them with all the usual business programs. People can carry their data on USB sticks or get it from the cloud.

IE....Business man flies into Chicago, rents laptop for say $10 per day, turns it in on his way back home.

The biggest problem I see with that idea is people installing viruses on the laptop, then your data can get infected.

Easy fix. Each laptop would be reformatted and reinstalled upon return. Guaranteed virus free.

CanuckBob wrote:Easy fix. Each laptop would be reformatted and reinstalled upon return. Guaranteed virus free.

Yes, they could do that, but it would be a PITA for their tech guys. And what about software like Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Quark Express, etc. Some of these are very expensive, and very time-consuming to reinstall. There are many business people who would need these programs, along with the usual Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.

I think they'd have to charge more than $10 a day for rental, and you'd have to purchase insurance against breakage or loss.

You pop out the hard drive and reinsert another hard drive in a matter of minutes. Obviously you won't please everyone. Yep, you can make money on insurance too.

You can save an "image" of the operating system and software to be installed. Just copy that image back to the laptop and it is what it was like when it went out the last time. You definitely wouldn't want to install each application from scratch. In a past life I used to do that on hundreds of computers at a time.

However, I agree that it wouldn't be practical for most business travelers. In addition to those specialized software applications a "generic" installation wouldn't have all of our tricks, shortcuts, add-ins, etc. And what about Outlook email that many business users depend on?

Interesting idea but it wouldn't work for me.

Interesting idea and solution, how would you insure that people didn't just take their rented laptop home with them? You'd have to charge a pretty hefty deposit.

I don't think this is gonna happen.

You can quickly configure Outlook to accept your e-mails. Most people have on-line email access anyhow. No application required.

I guess you take a CC imprint to ensure they don't take it home. I haven't taken any rental cars home yet....lol.

I think what will happen is in the near future hard drives will be easily removable. Upon arrival to your destination you buy/rent a disposable case including battery.


Toss when done.

The hard drive is actually a pretty inexpensive component compared to everything that is needed to make a computer a computer - monitor/screen, motherboard, wifi card, memory, keyboard, power supply, cooling fan, etc., etc., etc. And batteries are fairly expensive and not something we want to just throw away so they wind up in a landfill.

And CBob - I agree that you can configure your Outlook emails on another computer or use a web version to access your emails. But I have more than 15 email accounts for different projects and clients as well as a personal gmail account.

Some of the ideas about renting something as several have suggested wouldn't work for most business users. It definitely would work for me. But it could work for some people. Just my perspective.