Should laptops be banned on planes? Absolutely

BANNING laptops on planes might just make flying more pleasant. Read a book, have a chat, get on the sauce. Bring on the ban, writes James Morrow.

Put away your laptops. Sit back, relax and enjoy some in-flight entertainment. (Pic: iStock)

THERE was increasing talk of a ban on laptop computers in aeroplane cabins this past week, not just on certain international flights to the US and UK but even, potentially, on flights within Australia.

Naturally, airline bosses and business travellers have reacted to this prospect exactly as one would expect, that is to say like a classroom full of Year 3 students told they are one errant whirl away from having their fidget spinners confiscated.

It’ll hurt business, the carriers claim, though there has been no evidence of a drop in passenger traffic on those flights affected in the northern hemisphere.

Putting all those laptops in the holds of planes will cause an epidemic of fires on board as their lithium batteries spontaneously combust say the techies, though one gets the sense that this is a bit of fishing from a lobby that would sooner give up their left kidney than their computers, even for a couple of hours.

The Harvard Business Review has even raised the prospect that forcing people to check their laptops will expose them to all sorts of incursions by foreign intelligence agents: not content with supposedly having hacked the US election, the Russians have hacked the baggage carousels at Kingsford-Smith.

Intellectually most people get that a laptop ban won’t “keep us safe”, any more than the ridiculous security theatre at airports already in place. (I once watched five or six burly, tattooed gents wearing the colours of a prominent motorcycling enthusiasts association be waved through the metal detectors at Sydney only to then be stopped to have my briefcase swabbed with an explosives detector as part of a “random” check.)

The laptop ban may not “keep us safe” but it may make flying much more pleasant. (Pic: iStock)

And as last year’s attacks at Brussels and Istanbul demonstrated, those who want to cause mass casualties among air travellers don’t need to bother getting on a plane.

But there may just be good reason to ban laptops and other devices from planes: It might make flying more pleasant.

The business lobby’s claim that not being able to tap away on a flight to Melbourne will cause lost productivity flies in the face of the fact that most “work” done on planes involves twiddling with excel sheets or stacking up a load of outgoing messages “just looping you in on the feedback from the meeting to discuss the agenda for next week’s session to get some bottom-line figures blah blah blah.”

And this is without mentioning infernal computer games and videos, often watched or played by children sans earphones, that make seatmates’ lives a misery. A flight I recently enjoyed in the United States next to a fellow who was playing some sort of “fishing challenge” on his smartphone that actually involved rearing back and making like he was casting with his device remains one of the more memorable three-and-a-half hours I’ve ever spent in the air.

So bring on the ban. Read a book, have a chat, get on the sauce. People should enjoy not having distractions in the air, not leverage the fact to do even more meaningless work.

Bring back flight attendants whose demeanour is not that of a receptionist in a Vladivostok remand centre and we just might make flying great again.

James Morrow is the opinion editor for The Daily Telegraph.