UK follows US with laptop flight ban

Other countries expected to issue similar order after terror warning

WASHINGTON - The United Kingdom has followed the United States by banning larger electronic devices from the passenger cabin on flights from some airports in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa.

US officials on Tuesday warned that extremists are seeking "innovative" ways to attack airliners with smaller explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics bigger than smartphones.

The US has given nine airlines from eight countries until the weekend to tell travelers to the US to pack laptops, tablets and portable game consoles in their hold luggage.

No US carriers are affected, but the ban hits passengers on approximately 50 flights per day from the busiest hubs in the Arab world and the three Gulf carriers that recently emerged as giants: Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways.

On Tuesday night, Britain issued a similar order, applied to direct flights from a shorter list of countries. Other countries are expected to follow suit.

Canadian and French officials are considering imposing the same sort of measures, but Germany, Australia and New Zealand said they were not currently mulling a ban.

"The restrictions are in place due to evaluated intelligence ... (which) indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation and are aggressively pursuing innovative methods to undertake their attacks, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items," an official said.

US officials would not say how long the ban would last, but the Dubai-based Emirates airline said it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

The US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, refused to discuss the "intelligence information" that led the Transportation Security Administration to issue the order.

But one said concerns had been "heightened by several successful events and attacks on passenger lanes and airports over the last few years."

Reaction from the affected airports' host governments was generally low-key, and Emirates turned the situation into a lighthearted ad extolling the strengths of its in-flight entertainment, entitled: "Who needs a laptop?"

However, some potentially affected passengers said the ban was unfair.

"Security for some people, and other people none? It's not for everybody, right?" said Mohsen Ali, an Egyptian who was at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to meet a friend.

US officials said the decision had nothing to do with Trump's efforts to impose a travel ban on citizens of six majority-Muslim nations.

The airports touched by the ban are Queen Alia International in Amman, Jordan; Cairo International in Egypt; Ataturk in Istanbul, Turkey; King Abdulaziz International in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; King Khalid International in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Kuwait International; Mohammed V International in Casablanca, Morocco; Hamad International in Doha, Qatar; and the Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports in the United Arab Emirates.

In addition to the three Gulf airlines, the ban will hit flights operated by Royal Jordanian, EgyptAir, Turkish Airlines, Saudi Airlines, Kuwait Airways and Royal Air Maroc.

The British ban only involves six countries, two of which - Lebanon and Tunisia - do not feature on the US list. The change affects six British airlines, including British Airways and EasyJet, and eight foreign carriers.