For years at airport security checkpoints, passengers have heard the refrain, almost a dirge: “Laptops must be removed from their cases and placed on the belt.”
Get ready for a change. The Transportation Security Administration has given the go-ahead for passengers to use newly designed carry-on bags that will let them pass through security without having to take their laptops out for the X-ray inspection.
Kip Hawley, the agency’s director, said Monday that the TSA will accept the new laptop cases as soon as they come on the market.
Two of the biggest luggage manufacturers–Pathfinder Luggage and Targus–say they are rushing to produce the new “checkpoint friendly” laptop cases and expect them to be available by late September or early October.
Two problems with the existing laptop cases are that security officers have difficulty seeing inside them with X-ray equipment, and many of the cases are so crammed with extra gear–power cords, a mouse and the like–that the computer is obscured.
The new cases include either a fold-down section in a bigger briefcase or a standalone protective sleeve that contains no extra clutter and can be readily viewed through the scanner.
More than a half-dozen luggage manufacturers, among about 60 that initially responded to a TSA request for proposals about three months ago, have submitted prototypes for testing at checkpoints at three airports: Dulles, outside Washington; Austin-Bergstrom in Texas; and Ontario, near Los Angeles.
The agency says that more than a quarter of all air travelers carry laptops through security.
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