Screening Laptops
 

For anyone who brings a laptop, do any of you still have to remove it and put it into a bin? I haven't had to remove it at HKG or SIN. I removed it 5 times at YYZ (5 flights of 10, all removals were done when going to the US). I haven't removed it at LHR, TPE, CDG or FRA. Which airports are notorious for making you remove your laptop every time?

1)Any US airport

2)Many airports where there is "extra harassment" (e.g. FRA, ZRH) for flights departing to the US.

Vinny Gambini : How could it take you 5 minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes?

Mr. Tipton : Um... I'm a fast cook, I guess.

Vinny Gambini : You're a fast cook? Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than any place on the face of the earth?

Mr. Tipton : I don't know.

Vinny Gambini : Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?

-My Cousin Vinny

All laptops and camcorders are to come out of their cases. Any airport that's not doing it that way is doing it wrong.

Very funny.

Except in every other country but the US.

This is the one thing I hate more than the shoe carnival or great pointy object search (right up there with the groping, though I haven't personally encountered that yet).

Having to remove my precious PowerBook G4 from my Targus case is an asinine policy. My case isn't made of lead. If you can't sort it all out on the x-ray display you need better training. Perhaps some cross-training time with our friends across the pond at LHR would do the TSA well.

Ultimately, few things make me madder (at the airport) than seeing my G4 bounce down the rollers in an unpadded plastic bin and get bumped by other people's oversized rollaboards. :mad:

Yes, all those other countries (the ones not named USA) are "doing it wrong." :D

Yep. Dumb Ferriners. :D

Here in the USA, not only does our water boil four times faster, but our screeners can't be trusted to view an x-ray of a laptop in its protective case. :D

In the Australian airports you not only have to remove the laptop from the carry case, you'll also have to remove the battery which is to be x-rayed separately.

Besides the US, I've only seen this idiocy at HND (but not at NRT, go figure).

Well I can add Istanbul to the list, although they tried putting the whole bag through first. I guess the scanner couldn't make it clear because of some other things in there. They asked me to turn on the lap-tap, which I couldn't do because the battery had died. They then put the lap-top in the scanner (carefully and by hand!), agreed it was OK, and handed it back to me with a 'thank-you'. I'd put up with that anyday.

Incidentally, what is it about lap-tops and cam-corders? My carry-on bag contains everything that might have an electrical connotation - shaver, camera, mobile 'phone etc. No-one asks for them to be individually scanned, my only recent experience of having the bag searched was at a UK airport (LHR, flying Virgin to SFO, selected for random search).

I hate those bins. Watching my new laptop in that crappy bin come out the other end bumping into bags and other objects makes me angry. It can't get any worse if you own a pristine condition laptop.

This is exactly why we complain about useless window-dressing "security". I have been thinking about making a clear bag out of thin plastic for my laptop just to see if they make me take it out.

This thread is headed South and will therefore be closed.

_____________________

Cholula

Travel Safety/Security Forum Co-Moderator