<p>OK, I’ve never flown with a laptop and don’t want to look like a newbie… if it’s in a sleeve, can you pull that from your briefcase and put it in a different bin, or do you have to actually pull the laptop out of everything and send it through security alone?</p>
<p>Take the laptop out of the sleeve/backpack and put in a separate bin.</p>
<p>Yeah, separate bin.</p>
<p>^ what they said - gotta be in a separate bin and not in any bag or sleeve/cover</p>
<p>August 2008 changes in TSA procedure allow the laptop to remain in the sleeve if certain conditions are met. Some “butterfly” style laptop bags allow the laptop to remain in the bag while being scanned.</p>
<p>[TSA:</a> “Checkpoint Friendly” Laptop Bag Procedures](<a href=“http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/simplifying_laptop_bag_procedures.shtm]TSA:”>http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/simplifying_laptop_bag_procedures.shtm)</p>
<p>Despite the new regs (and having one of the new style bags), I am finding, much to my shock 
, that TSA does not universally recognize the new style bags and I am better off simply placing the laptop in a bin. Key to speed is to put the briefcase through first, then whatever else you have and then the laptop last. Then on the other side you can grab the briefcase and slide the laptop right in…</p>
<p>One caution…remember after you put that laptop in a separate bin…to take it after you go through security!! Two years ago, my kid took it out of her bag to put it through the security in NYC and didn’t realize she forgot to take it. She was on the plane and was realizing she did not have her laptop and assumed it was stolen while waiting for the plane or on the plane and didn’t know what she was gonna tell us. So, she gets off the plane here in VT and greets us and at that very moment when she thought she would have to admit she did not have her laptop, her cell phone rang and it was someone from airport security back at JFK who found her laptop and saw her name and number on it and saved it and called her and offered to mail it to us overnight express (my kid was only home less than a week and was going onto Florida and then on a trip to Brazil before back to college in NYC. She was very lucky that this person in security cared!! (and that her name was on it)</p>
<p>soozievt:</p>
<p>Great point - I have my business card taped to the bottom of my laptop just in case. </p>
<p>I also put my wallet and cell phone into my laptop bag in the pocket where the laptop normally goes. That way when I put my wallet and cell phone back into my pocket, I am reaching into that empty space :)</p>
<p>scualum, I agree that you’re just better off taking it completely out of any kind of bag because you never know what the TSA person will want. I often travel with a video projector which has a soft case with a strap that fits inside the padded bag. Invariably, if I take it completely out of the carrying bag, the TSA person tells me I could have left it in. If, on the other hand, I leave it in, the TSA person tells me I have to remove it from any kind of bag. This has happened so regularly as to be funny, and sometimes I leave it in the bag just to see what they will see. It never fails.</p>
<p>They are all right. It can be a pain when you have to take it out though.</p>
<p>There is a sign at the Atlanta (I think that was the airport I saw it at) airport security line that you can now leave your laptop in its sleeve. It does not have to be one of the new “airport friendly” sleeve, any sleeve will do. I sent mine through in the sleeve without a problem.</p>
<p>Not all airports do that though ^^. I know for a fact that Denver, Baltemor(sp), Jaxsonville, and Northfork don’t.</p>
<p>Side note: Sorry it seems i can’t spell today. :)</p>