Who knew that air travel could be so complicated?
It’s not much more expensive to layover in Canada.
I just priced out London - Toronto - Houston one way for $540, and on that flight you keep your laptop with you at all times.
For comparison, London - NYC - Houston would cost $430 one way. I suspect many companies would be willing to pay the difference.
Is the laptop ban from Europe in effect now? I have to travel to Beirut on Sunday… really really really hope I don’t have to check my laptop on the way back.
The article I read said it’s banned from some non-European countries but they’re considering adding some European countries (I assume not all of them).
Just flew from Vienna to Newark today and laptops are allowed in cabin.
Awesome. Here’s hoping that doesn’t change for the next 8 days.
All right, not going to say I told you so, just that I don’t see how there can be any doubt that all this is part of some sort of diabolical plan.
For once, the terrorists didn’t win.
“This flight is oversold and we need your seat, this gentleman is here to assist you with deplaning…”
"Get over here!"
It’s Southwest’s turn:
http://www.wgrz.com/news/dads-denied-family-boarding-at-southwest-gate/441699499
I’ve never seen this happen. Here is their claim for the policy that they might be stupid enough to try and justify the encounter:
Channel 2 reached out to Southwest, who said they’ve only just heard about this situation and referred us to their “family boarding policy,” which a spokesperson says indicates one adult can board with children under six years old, but the language is vague, such that on their website, it reads as though one adult can board per every one child under six years old.
I’ve never, ever seen a gate agent tell a mother or father, sorry sir or ma’am… only one of you can go in there with your children. Never seen it.
edit:oops i put the wrong company initially.
Yeah… I have a ton of miles on SW, and I’m usually up near the front of the boarding line. I’ve never seen them deny a parent during family boarding. People get turned back all the time when they try to board first – SW’s family boarding is a bit later than some other airlines (it’s between A and B) – but I’ve never seen them turn one parent back while letting another hop on.
The article also says the “frail” 83-year old grandmother was seated next to the emergency exit. That’s against policy on every US-based airlines, so this may be a case of one particularly bad gate agent/ cabin crew.
Yeah, you can’t put grandma at the emergency exit. Hell, the first thing they ask you if you get seated there is if you can open the fucking door. I’m pretty sure grandma didn’t say she could.
It’s just a person with “power” abusing it like it almost always is.
It’s almost like giving too much power to a bunch of self-important idiots is a recipe for disaster.
Yes, but this thread isnt about the Trump Administration.
TheHill: TSA considers forcing airline passengers to remove books from carry-ons
The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) is reportedly testing new safety procedures that could require airline passengers to remove books from their carry-on bags when going through security lines, raising privacy concerns.
The Week reported that the TSA began testing the new security requirement for books and other paper products at airports in Missouri and California earlier this month. The new screening process could require passengers to remove all reading material and food from their carry-ons and place them in bins for screening, though the Wall Street Journal noted that the changes have not been finalized.
[…]
The American Civil Liberties Organization (ACLU) raised concerns over the proposed book policy in a recent post on its website, given that TSA agents could page through books as part of the search.
“[B]ooks raise very special privacy issues,” senior policy analyst Jay Stanley wrote. “There is a long history of special legal protection for the privacy of one’s reading habits in the United States, not only through numerous Supreme Court and other court decisions, but also through state laws that criminalize the violation of public library reading privacy or require a warrant to obtain book sales, rental, or lending records.”
The ACLU urged the TSA to train its agents in the privacy concerns surrounding examining passengers’ books and papers and proposed the agents allow passengers to wrap their books and papers in another material, like a sleeve, to protect their contents.
Train their agents concerning privacy about books? This is the same group that had so many problems with the scanners and their employees we have to remove outlines and shadows, vivid ones admittedly, of breasts and penises… yeah I’m surely they’ll do fine with the training.
What in the world do they think they’re going to find in between the pages of a book? Are explosives that small now?
They’re afraid people might read Brave New World or 1984.
I know exactly what books I’ll take with me on flights, from here on out.
Paper? That’s a potential fire accelerant. Very combustible. Or it can be torn up to be used as distracting chaff in a hand-to-hand fight. Paper cuts, oh yes, those can be nasty. Newspapers can be fashioned into a Millwall Brick. I theorize that a determined terrorist can jam a novel down the airplane toilet, causing such a pressure imbalance that all the sewage pipes buckle and rupture, which could cause the loss of the airframe and all souls on board.
Paper, man. It’s kind of crazy they’ve allowed it for so many years.