A couple of weeks ago, the FAA issued a warning about a particular model and year-spread of MacBook Pro laptops. Because of a recall that had been issued this summer and a battery issue, the FAA and many airlines said that particular model could not be taken on an airplane
Airlines Expand the Ban to All 15” MacBook Pro Laptops
Qantas has taken the position to ban all 15” MacBook Pro laptops from use on their aircraft. They cannot be checked in their luggage either. This means that any 15” MacBook Pro, not just the recalled models, are now banned from use on Qantas planes.
With Qantas being an Australian airline and Australia being a long distance from most of the world, anyone planning to fly them with a MacBook Pro may want to bring a different laptop or use a tablet if they need to do things in flight.
Virgin Australia has taken a more broad position – they have banned all Apple laptops from checked luggage. Their website does not say the laptops cannot be used on the plane but I would not be surprised if some flight attendants warn passengers about using them in flight.
Will this spread to other airlines with the wide range of the ban? I would hope not but it is not uncommon for things of this nature to be adopted by other airlines. Hopefully, Apple gets this going with all affected customers very soon as that would likely be the only way that a ban would be lifted (and they do have a website where affected customers can find out if they are included).
Why did they put such a large ban on Apple computers? My guess is that they are either concerned that the battery problems may exist in other models or that they don’t want to have to take a person’s word that their model was not one of the affected models. In any case, I understand Australian airlines having this concern as their flights will spend a large amount of time over the ocean which would make any in-flight emergency from a battery issue a really big deal.
HT: Business Insider
If you’re reporting something factually different from what the airline is saying, a source would be helpful.
I included the source at the bottom and the airlines reported this to Business Insider – the source. What do you know to be factually different from what I have written?
Banned from flying is a tad more than just carry-on and switched-off, which is what BusinessInsider mentions.
clickbait. it’s still allowed to be carried on, just not in checked luggage. smh