US, EU in urgent talks on expanding laptop ban on flights

BRUSSELS (AP) — European governments are holding urgent talks Friday with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, alarmed at a proposed expansion of the U.S. ban on in-flight laptops and tablets to include planes from the EU.

[...] a move, which some airline officials expect will happen, would create logistical chaos on the world's busiest corridor of air travel — as many as 65 million people fly on trans-Atlantic routes a year.

U.S. officials have said the decision in March to bar laptops and tablets from the cabins of some international flights, mostly from the Mideast, wasn't based on any specific threat but on longstanding concerns about extremists targeting jetliners.

A French official with direct knowledge about Friday's meeting said France planned to push back against the measure, saying there was no information to suggest a significant increase in the terror threat.

[...] Homeland Security officials met Thursday with high-ranking executives of the three leading U.S. airlines — American, Delta and United — and the industry's leading U.S. trade group, Airlines for America, to discuss expanding the laptop policy to flights arriving from Europe.