Departed BWI this afternoon on Southwest. Transited a fairly quiet checkpoint at approximately 1:15pm. I am traveling with my boat-anchor work Dell laptop, and my 11.1″ MacBook Air. I dutifully removed the laptop from my bag, but left the MacBook Air inside as I’ve done on every trip since buying it. Make it through the metal detector and wait for my belongings. Everything cleared, but the agent asked if I had a laptop in my bag. I replied that I had an 11 inch MacBook Air in the bag. “All laptops must come out of the bag.” You can’t fight city hall, so fine. What I didn’t much care for was being directed to go back outside security, remove the MB Air from my bag, and reclear the metal detector while being separated from my other belongings, including my other laptop! Of course, the agent took me all the way to the back of the now 4 or 5 person deep line to do all this. Thankfully, my laptop was still there when I cleared the metal detector again, but leaving it alone was a dumb move on my part. So BWI TSA, what’s the answer for the 11.1″ MacBook Air. Your website says “IN” the bag. I absolutely accept that TSA can ask me to remove anything at anytime they need to in order to get a clear image for x-ray. But this wasn’t like that. This was me being spoken to like I’m a 5 year old for trying to do something TSA clearly says is OK. Off soapbox.
BWI TSA Misses Memo on 11.1″ MacBook Air
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The MacBook Air thing actually bothers me less than seperating you from your luggage. This is not a situation the TSA wants because it opens them to accusations of theft if your stuff isn’t there when you get back and, honestly, one thing I’ve seen the TSA generally handle pretty well. They should’ve seperated and rescanned the items without you having to go back through the medal detector (like they do when they find a water bottle in your bag).
Bunch of clueless clowns are “protecting” us from terrorists. You should have spoken up about their own regulation regarding the MBA.
probably the same guy who hassled me a few years ago. The fun thing, I was traveling with a DOJ director who promptly identified himself and asked why he was exceeding the regulations.