by Michael Karam - National AE
Leaving Lebanon at the best of times can make you feel like you’ve been on an assault course. For some reason – maybe a burst of zeal in the wake of the appointment of a new president – the unsmiling security at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport has become more rigorous and less efficient. Passengers already endure five passport checks and two luggage scans, and now those travelling to the United Kingdom out of the Lebanese capital must put all electronic devices bigger than a mobile phone, such as laptops and tablets, in checked luggage. I don’t know how much time this will add to the general airport nightmare and I’m not even sure what difference it makes to passenger security; for surely a bomb in the hold will do as much damage as a bomb in the cabin.
My first reaction was that Lebanon only has itself to blame. Overall security measures at the relatively new terminal building have been criticised in recent years, especially as it is widely known that Hizbollah, the uncompromising Shia political party, wields huge influence at the airport. Then again, other countries with less shady reputations, the UAE being the most striking example, are affected by a similar US ruling on carry-on devices, so who knows? But is it really such a big deal? There has always been a hard and fast rule – often from swivel-eyed friends – that you never check in your laptop. I’ve done it twice. The first time nothing happened and the other time British Airways lost, but eventually found, my bag. Admittedly it was a bore to be without my computer, but I still reasoned that I was supremely unlucky and still work on the theory that the risk of damage, loss or theft is greatest only when taking a connecting flight when there is more opportunity for something to go wrong.
In any case, now that it is a requirement, airlines are going to bend over backwards to see that nothing goes wrong. Emirates is already taking steps to ensure passengers flying to the US can use their devices right up to the departure gate. But this didn’t stop Facebookers and the Twitterati from exploding with outrage and indignation at the new rulings. "What are we meant to do on a 14-hour flight without an iPad?" "How are we meant to work without our laptops?" and "How would the kids sit still without their devices?" Now I can rant and rage with the best of them, but on the issue of device addiction, I throb with the Luddites – even through, if I am being honest, I also spend too much time staring at my own phone. And it is probably because of this that I can’t help but feel that, while this enforced down time makes no sense, it is, if you think about it, really quite harmless. I almost welcome it.
What to do on a 14-hour flight? Well, most in-flight entertainment, especially on long-haul flights, is better than I had at home not that many years ago and I can remember the days when if there was a film on a flight, it was shown after the meal on "communal" screens above our heads. When that was over, all there was to do was read, sleep, chat to your neighbour or simply stare out the window.
The loss of work time argument holds a bit more water, but not much more. In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with emails, what better than a long flight to get on top of the backlog or work on that presentation? So yes, it is an annoyance, but is it really the end of the world? Eventually, just like we have grown used to putting our toiletries in plastic bags; understanding what 100ml bottles look like; removing our shoes and belts and emptying our change into the plastic trays, we will get used to the idea of packing our devices and being separated from them for a few hours.
Who knows? We might actually enjoy it.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton
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