Originally Posted by
jsfr
I suspect that this is much less of a health risk than creating additional and significant stress by removing the cat from it's safety zone in the cage and taking the risk of an escape (a cat who really doesn't want to be held, will not be held long) and extremely difficult recovery with high stress loads in a large and foreign environment - with lots of little hiding places...
Yeah, he didn't do well when I walked him through the magnetometer at the first airport (and have scratches on my belly to prove it). I figured there's a decent chance he could bite/scratch his way to freedom, so it was better to take the extremely minimal health risk.