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Hot on the heels of Etihad having the electronics ban lifted on its flights from Abu Dhabi, Turkish Airlines flights from Istanbul have had their ban lifted as well as Emirates flights from Dubai.
Turkish Airlines confirmed on Twitter that you can now take your electronics on board with you on flights to the US, while in the early hours of Wednesday, July 5, 2017, Emirates sources stated that they have also won a reprieve from the travel ban.
More Bans To Be Lifted?
It seems airlines have reacted very swiftly to the new security measures being implemented on flights to the U.S. The first airline to win a reprieve earlier in the week was Etihad, which had the ban lifted on its flights from Abu Dhabi. This made perfect sense with Abu Dhabi as a home to a U.S. CBP pre-clearance facility, however at the time it did not seem clear if other airports on the banned list would be able to have their ban lifted.
The current ban affected flights from 10 airports in 8 countries, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. With the latest reprieves, Turkey and the UAE are now completely off the banned list, and it could be only a matter of time before other countries are removed from the list once they comply with the new security measures.
Our Take
If these bans mean that security is being improved this is fantastic. What will be interesting over the next weeks and months is if airports in other affected countries will have their electronics bans lifted as well.
Anyone who has traveled through Istanbul (IST) or Abu Dhabi (AUH) or Dubai (DXB), will know how stringent the security was at these airports. Ramping up existing procedures to meet the new measures should be relatively straightforward. Whether other countries will be able to increase their security measures sufficiently to convince US authorities is another matter entirely, especially Qatar which has a whole host of other problems at the minute.
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