business class, and first class are far more profitable than tourist class.
If an airline could configure its planes without a tourist class, and fill those expanded premium cabins., it would.
Without wishing to beat a dead horse, the ban officially expires on October 14th but may be extended.
I don’t recall similar expiration dates on any of the other post 9-11 security measures but if anyone knows better, please let me know. As it is, this looks like a direct way of applying negotiating leverage against the airlines in question:
“Oh, is this hurting your profits? All you have to do is agree to the demands we failed to secure a month ago and we’ll end this in October. I mean, we could just carry it on indefinitely, it makes no difference to us…”
ooh, very sneaky.
Agreed. And I cannot recall ever seeing a country asking to be exempt from such a measure before. This whole thing stinks.
So, at the risk of giving credit where it clearly is not due …
Assume the various US intelligence agencies have information about an individual AND
Assume that information is specific and credible enough to require a response AND
Assume the information is also vague enough that it doesn’t require an intsta-droning AND
Assume that the information relates to the travel of that individual from “somewhere” the Middle East to the US, carrying a laptop or other large electronic device, over a specific date range
Now, assuming all that, you could watch that individual to see what they do in response to the announced ban. In that specific circumstance it doesn’t matter that the ban is public, nor that it doesn’t go in to effect for a few days. In fact, giving the person under surveillance time to adjust is an explicit benefit. Do they promptly change their flight booking so they can continue to carry their laptop on board? That would be … interesting, though not necessarily proof of nefarious intent.
And, yes: I do feel I should enter Schneier’s Movie Plot contest with that convoluted tale of nested assumptions.
Rider: frankly, I think it’s far more plausible that they’re using ‘security’ as a Trojan horse for a trade war. Remember that thing about “believe the autocrat”? It applies here too.
And of course, there are not too few Americans who would be proud of this.
Laptops had nothing to do with that. People got on the planes, hijacked them, and flew them into buildings. Making them check their lappies would have made no difference. [quote=“waetherman, post:84, topic:97440”]
Oh FFS, it’s a flight without a laptop. You know who else had to fly without a laptop?
[/quote]
Of course, there are people who are traveling for business who use long trips to do work. [quote=“waetherman, post:84, topic:97440”]
It’s easy to lump this in with anti Muslim crap and Trump bullshit
[/quote]
It is.
I’m sure our wars in the middle east and Afghanistan have nothing to do with that. No, they just hate us for our freedoms. If you really want a safer world, then we need to stop the imperialist BS, back actual humane global policies and treaties that we all adhere to, and stop doubling down on security theater that does nothing to help the situation.
Number of scary brown people? 
Oh good… so glad we killed all those civilians for that 10 year old intel. /s
Obviously. You missed my entire point.
Latest reports suggest that, just as I asserted, this is related to a specific bomb threat, not related to the Muslim travel ban.
A “specific threat” which will never be explained in more detail because something, something national security, of course.
Reports are from mainstream media. But, whatever. You can spin your conspiracy theories all you want, if it helps you build your case against Trump. I prefer to build on a more solid foundation.
Yes, there are lots of reports from unnamed sources saying “terrorists appear to be developing the capability to do this but we don’t think they can yet. Better safe than sorry though, right?”
There are also lots of reports that point out that the timing is odd, putting sanctions on the airlines affected seems to conveniently bolster American business interests, the ban as it stands does nothing to stop attacks from other locations or increase security by much at all, the UK didn’t specifically ban the big three Gulf airlines in response to the same intelligence, putting batteries in the hold may actually increase risk, and that this new rule comes amidst the background of trump repeatedly trying to ban Muslims from entering the US.
I don’t doubt that there is an intelligence report kicking around that says that this is a potential risk. That would be the same report that Canada and Australia saw, and decided wasn’t worth doing anything about.
It’s odd, though, that none of the incidents mentioned to justify the ban occurred within the last year. It’s also odd that this report emerged immediately after the US carriers failed to renegotiate key deals that affect their ability to compete with the Gulf airlines, and immediately after a meeting with the president to discuss new measures to make themselves more competitive.
I don’t think that it is conspiracy theory to point any of this out, and neither do The Guardian, Forbes, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Channel News Asia and many other mainstream news organisations.
Well said. Agree with you.
Smells like 3 day old fish.
My prediction: business class flights out of France and Germany are going to get a whole lot more expensive as business travelers flying out of the Middle East arrange for another layover so they can keep their laptops on intercontinental flights.
I have to confess, the more this looks to be just a trade war salvo, the less bothered I am by it. It seems to mainly target 1%ers flying on airlines that probably have been violating open skies principles.
It’s just awfully convenient, though.
