Laptop in flight?

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=15872

Following on from Virgin's bizare stance on Dell / Mac laptops, has anyone flown recently with a Dell / Mac? If so did you have to take the battery out prior to boarding, could you not use it, did they check etc etc?

Flying on Sunday and guess I'll be leaving my MacBook in my bag. Our company has already instructed employes going stateside to not fly VA if they need to work on laptops.

Slinky09 reported in this thread that he had used his "banned" laptop on a flight.

Paul

I flew on VS1 on the 30th August, carrying a macbook. An announcement was read out before takeoff saying that the use of Apple/Dell notebooks was not permitted. My macbook stayed in the overhead locker, with its battery installed. Nobody came around looking for these deadly devices, nor asked me if I was indeed carrying one. Also, nobody said anything about removing the battery.

OK. Using it in flight is just something I was planning on doing if the IFE was broke. Nearly 50% of VA flights I've taken have at IFE fault (Barbados VA I have 3 broken screens, just lucky flight was empty).

Waw more worried about my battery rattling around in my hand luggage.

Funny isn't it. The problem reported only occurs if running on mains with the battery in! Simple, say no to in seat power for laptop users! Problem solved...

I flew on VS005 to Miami on Tuesday 12th. I had my MacBook Pro carefully searched before boarding, including having the battery removed and closely examined (not for faulty battery issue, but I suspect they have been given instructions to check to see if the batteries could have been tampered with to contain liquids?). No comment was made about me taking or using the laptop on board. Incidentally, my battery is not affected by the recent recall.

On board, I asked if I could have a power lead. No problem I was told, as long as I removed my battery, which I was happy to do. Of course, in practice, it was a non-event, as they don't have the correct power tips for the new Apple MagSafe power connectors. That unfortunately is an Apple issue, as they have a patent pending on that technology, so no-one can make inflight (or in car) adaptors for them [n].