Airline lobby group claims a laptop ban would cost $1B

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/05/17/productivity-vs-dr-evil.html

laptops banned on long haul flights
incidents of flight-violence rises 200%
people lose their minds

i see the headlines now.

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I suppose this implies that the introduction of laptops over the course of the last 25 years or so resulted in $655M in productivity gains…?

[quote]$195M for renting airline-supplied devices to use while your laptop is in the cargo hold[/quote]Well, that money wouldn’t really be “lost”; it would be paid into the hands of the airline, who would no doubt pass these savings on to the consumer oh ha ha no.

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What I don’t get is what makes a lithium laptop battery safer if it’s in the hold where no one can see it catch on fire and/or do something about it?

(Bing) Attention passengers if you feel your feet getting warm that’s just a small fire in the hold. On a related note we are making an unscheduled landing immediately. No need to report to the baggage carousel, just line up outside the lost luggage office and they’ll be happy to help you. Once again, thank you for flying Spirit Air!

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So, The airline’s lobby is whining about $1 Billion cost to consumers yet they suggest an additional cost to consumers via fees associated with PreCheck or some other yet to be determined fleecing scheme. I call BS.

The only thing that doesn’t stink about this lobbying effort is that they are as skeptical of the bans premise as I am.

“We are not sure that this ban is adapted to the threat. We don’t know what is the basis or intelligence that justifies this measure.”

The only thing airlines are worried about is that people will stop flying.

"Aviation consultant Michael Boyd said a ban on tablets and laptops would be a deterrent to flying. Trans-Atlantic flights can be long and boring, but they give business travelers valuable hours to work on their devices.

“Many of those business people will say, ‘I’ll find other ways of communicating, because if I can’t take my laptop, I won’t be effective on this trip,” Boyd said." -Marketplace.org

Silver Lining: The Planet will be better off and less people will get punched in the face. Less resources will be consumed. Less pollution. Less noise. Less crowded airports. Etc. It’s a win for the human race.

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The airline lobby can take a flying fuck on United or Delta.

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Prediction: the solution will be to only ban laptops in coach class, but let business- and first-class passengers continue to use them.

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Or they install conference rooms on airplanes eliminating 10 or 15 rows per plane forcing economy class customers to hang on meat hooks by their arm pits whilst charging $1000.00 a head for business travelers to use video conferencing and high speed internet via dumb terminals with free ear phones.

I don’t suppose they could consider more radical measures such as… oh… building strong relations with other, non-USA nation’s? I guess it doesn’t help they fired the State Department.

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I guess they’re referring to the drop in lucrative business class travel if people can’t work during flights. And if you lose business travellers, you basically go bankrupt on long haul flights unless you hike the fares for us plebs in cattle class.

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That’s the San Jose Mercury News take on it then? Not Airline Industry Cloudbusters offer Trump Administration to Disintermediate That For Us, Only US$1B Front Cost, and a byline promising to break that down to BTC where we can understand it, and how much of every Administration they can think of could be commissioned on the cloud?

Darnit VPaaS, that’s the 40th Israel peace accord this quarter and we’re running out of factions.
Oh tuck in, there’s another talky PaaS address about how a .MX border full of desalination plants are almost as hazardous as coal and can fill some kind of pride own-goal. yeesh. Trained in Philly, that one.
This flight has no CTF? In the oughts when I flew there was -always- a CTF…

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