Passengers could soon be prohibited from traveling with large electronic devices on some US-bound flights due to a ban that appears to be instituted by the US government.
The new rules surfaced in a now-deleted tweet on Monday from Royal Jordanian Airlines, which said that starting March 21, passengers are not allowed to bring any "electrical or electronic device" other than cell phones or medical devices on board the company's flights to the US. It would affect flights flying into New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Montreal, the tweet said.
Royal Jordanian said it was following "instructions from the concerned US departments" and would ban "laptops, cameras, DVD players, and electronic games" from the flight cabins.
Royal Jordanian did not immediately respond to a request for comment. When asked on Twitter why its initial tweet had been deleted, the airline responded that "further updates will be announced soon."
A spokesman for the US Department of Homeland Security declined to comment. "We have no comment on potential security precautions, but will provide any update as appropriate," he wrote in an email.
According to The Guardian, airlines from 13 countries will be caught up in the ban, including Saudi Arabia's Saudia Airlines. The airlines were informed via a confidential email distributed by the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA), which The Guardian suggests was supposed to be kept quiet, perhaps prompting Royal Jordanian to delete its tweet.
Saudia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Other than an exemption for cell phones, the ban's specifics aren't clear, although it appears to be up to the airlines to ensure that passengers on affected flights don't have any of the banned electronics in their carry-on luggage.
As airlines install Wi-Fi on more aircraft, laptops and tablets are gaining usefulness in the air, and many carriers have been using tablets to replace the heavy navigational charts and other paperwork that their flight crews were formerly required to carry. It's unclear if those tablets would also be subject to the ban.
The news comes shortly after a US court struck down President Trump's revised travel ban.
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