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COMMENT Save us from knee-jerk security


Now and Then... O


nce upon a time I blindly believed that


all grown ups must be right because they talk much louder than us


children and get angry if we don’t do what they tell us to do. Then as I aged I was told that ‘the new


reason’ I should carry on listening to ‘these wise people’ was simply because they were experienced, so they obviously know best. So imagine what a disappointment this


has all been for me in the last couple of weeks as ‘some of these experts’ have bombarded the world’s busiest newsrooms with dire warnings about potentially explosive laptops in aircraft cabins. Surely they were safe before, or they


wouldn’t have been allowed in aircraft cabins in the first place? Well fortunately both the European


Commission as well as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally agreed that this was the case last month – for now. Especially considering the pressure on the


high-level European delegation – including European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc to extend the existing US/ UK/part-Middle East cabin ban on large portable electronic devices (PEDs/laptops and tablets) on flights from Europe. Having said this, both ACI Europe and the


International Air Transport Association also strongly opposed this initiative. In fact both warned of severely disruptive


consequences to schedules, plus virtual chaos due to the large number of flight cancellations caused by much more stringent security checks. So can we all really believe that it all got this far without anyone even asking the airline pilots what they thought about it all? [That would actually be a yes]. The fact is that many pilots believe that


laptops are actually more dangerous in an enclosed and inaccessible space such as an aircraft hold – ‘a mere fact’ which seems to have eluded many of the so-called experts. Had someone bothered to ask the pilots


before convening trans-Atlantic meetings between top security advisors, then a few more airline tickets might have been saved. The much respected British Airline Pilots’ Association (BALPA) has since pointed out


74 TRBUSINESS


Fears that laptops and PEDs would need checking to ensure they contained no explosives in their battery compartments are what has driven this debate. But British pilots say that storing them all together in the hold is just asking for trouble. Photo credit: TSA


that the risk arising from storing PEDs in the hold where they may catch fire without being noticed ‘could be greater than the security risk of having them in the cabin’. The pilots went even further by suggesting


that storing PEDs in aircraft holds actually ‘clashes with current safety advice’, stating that such devices should ideally be carried ‘in the cabin in case of a fire’.


Laptops safer in aircraft cabins Lithium batteries (routinely used in phones and laptops) are a recognised danger when they ignite and BALPA has warned before about the potential flammable danger associated with too many being carried in proximity to each other in enclosed spaces. In a statement the pilots union said:


“Lithium battery fires, unless caught early can spread quickly and therefore official ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) advice is that devices should be kept in the cabin so that any potential fires can be spotted and extinguished before they enter a state known as ‘thermal runaway’ – at which point they are almost impossible to extinguish. “A fire in the hold would get out of control


without being noticed and the crew would be unable to access the fire in order to deal with it; lithium batteries have been cited in the accident reports of at least two fatal accidents.” BALPA says that the pilot’s safety position


on this issue is that they ‘fully understand the threat being debated’, but simply shifting PEDs into hold storage is hardly the answer. (Someone ask them next time...) «


JUNE 2017


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