London Airports
So the airports in the UK went crazy today after a terror plot was uncovered. The upshot is severe restrictions on what you can take on as hand luggage, and a fair number of flight cancellations.
The restrictions mean you can't carry laptop computers on board. Instead they want you to check them through and trust them to the baggage handlers ...
I'm meant to be flying back to Australia on Saturday, so we'll see what happens. I'm not particularly looking forward to getting home with a broken laptop.
Comments:
Eugenia -
I agree. After 9/11 new restrictions were added to plane flights in US too.
It sucks to take off your shoes each time you go through security for example... This didn't used to be a requirement.
housetier -
One wonders how a "bomb" in the baggage area of the plane differs from a lapbomb in the passenger area. But it is difficult to get questions answered in these times and days of paranoia, where suspicious means guilty.
Next thing will be banning anyone with school education from planes; because, you know, in school they learn what you can do with hydrogen and oxygen. Yes you make WATER, but the process can be rather explosive.
I should stop giving them ideas...
Mary -
The other problem is that a very common exclusion on travel insurance policies is "electronic devices are not covered if carried in a cargo hold." I'm therefore assuming that Canonical employees would be far from the only people upset by this because suddenly a lot of people are travelling with uninsured expensive equipment.
Is there any chance of having it shipped (flown) home somehow by a proper freight company who know how to pack things?
Victor Bogado -
Yes housetier, there are bombs that go in the baggage area, I heard that the Israelly airports usually decompress all the baggages before boarding. This procedure eliminates the possibility of some enviromental triggers.
Bombs in the baggage area is even better, since you can kill without dieing in the process. Simply board the baggages and don't fly, or if the bomb is small enough you could attempt to plant it in other peoples bags.
There is no end to this paranoia so in the meantime I would sugest James to use a ton of bubble plastic arround his laptop... :-P
Mary -
And, for that matter, a proper freight company that will provide the ability to insure the shipment.
Paul -
One can't "simply board the baggages and don't fly", that hasn't been possible for a long time. Don't board and your baggages will be offloaded.
It doesn't take much imagination to think of ways a a bomb in the baggage area may differ from one in the hand luggage.
For a start one in luggage must be pre assembled into a device. I imagine such a device is easier to spot on xrays and the like (though with laptops and so forth being checked into luggage there will currently be more complex devices to hide amoung). In hand luggage different parts of the bomb could be hidden in apparantly innocuous components and even split between two or more people and then put together on the plane (presumably in a toilet).
Aren't luggage containers on planes somewhat bomb resistant these days too? A luggage bomb would probably need to be bigger.
It sure is a pain in the arse but I'm not sure that "crazy" is the right epithet. All things considered the response seems a considered and measured one to a seemingly specific type of threat. Flights weren't cancelled as far as I know, apart from cancellations due to capacity problems caused by slowing things down.