Re:US Lifts Laptop Ban on Etihad, Emirates and Turkish Airlines
by madcaptenor on Wednesday July 05, 2017 @10:55AM
(#14702845)
I flew a round-trip on Turkish (Atlanta-Istanbul-Vienna, then Budapest-Istanbul-Atlanta) while the ban was in effect. The ban was only in effect on the Istanbul to Atlanta flight. I believe I could have carried a laptop on the Budapest-Istanbul flight and "gate-checked" it at Istanbul; I didn't see anyone do this, but my carry-on bag was searched at the gate so I suppose that's when it would have happened. See http://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2017/04/19/guide-elec... for an example of how this gate checking may have worked.
The ban is because authorities believe security at those airports is inadequate to detect a bomb built into a laptop. This implies they believe security at other airports is able to detect such things. If the ban is being lifted for specific airlines, it's because those airlines have security sufficient to detect these laptop bombs (or at least the authorities believe they do).
It is not necessarily the case that every airline at a given airport has the exact same security. It's possible for terminals to be separated and security measures to be enhanced at only one terminal. It's possible for additional security screening to be done at the gate.