

Virgin Atlantic says no to Dell and Apple notebooks on battery power







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RE: Bleh about time?
By Johnmcl7 on 9/18/2006 4:10:29 PM , Rating: 3
To be honest no, for starters it's not 4.1 million laptops - many of the laptops with affected batteries will be with companies who will have replaced the batteries already. Then there's the actual proportion of people who have an affected battery AND they haven't replaced them AND they're also flying AND the battery will just happen to explode then. To put it midly, the chances are extremely narrow - you're also assuming no other piece of consumer electronics can go wrong, personally in my experience with laptops I'd be more concerned about the power supplies.

It's never going to be safe until you ban everything.


RE: Bleh about time?
By mindless1 on 9/18/2006 7:35:07 PM , Rating: 2
We don't have to care about ABSOLUTE saftey, rather mitigating it. There is not ANY worst-case-possible failure of a laptop power supply that is as bad as any or all laptop Li-Ion battery failure-fires.

Their ban may be excessive, but it is technically a correct, though too conservative, call if maintaining safest possible airlines is a priority.

Personally, I'd rather do without my laptop than all these random searches, waiting, and common item restrictions. I'd rather know everyone on the flight had toothpaste, peanut butter and toenail clippers instead of running battery powered laptops. So whether it's justified or not, it is more dangerous than the things they're already banning.

RE: Bleh about time?
By Johnmcl7 on 9/19/2006 8:32:02 AM , Rating: 2
You've clearly not seen a power supply go wrong.

You're also incorrectly assuming that only a manufacturing defect can cause a problem, there are plenty of reasons that damaged electronics can cause problems. Following your argument we should ban all electronics, not just Dell/Apple batteries.

Also, you're examples of common items that shouldn't be banned is also incorrect as I'm sure you're aware why these items were banned in the first place.


RE: Bleh about time?
By mindless1 on 9/20/2006 5:54:44 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, I regularly repair switching supplies.

What they do not do, is produce firey explosions one after another. There is no possible failure mode as bad as the typical failures of the (Sony et al) batteries.

I did not claim any of the items listed should or shouldn't be banned, necessarily, only that _I_ would rather be sitting next to people with these common banned items than laptops. Yes a terrorist could make a bomb- and they still can out of things not banned, but I choose convenience over searches, freedom over safety, but at the same time, recall hearing of more laptops exploding than jars of peanut-butter!


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