It seems the 11.6-inch MacBook Air falls into the "small and portable electronic items" category that the iPad belongs to, at least where airport security is concerned. 13-inch Air owners will still have to remove them from bags, though.
Those couple extra inches count for something with the TSA, though as I said yesterday taking laptops out of bags (and removing shoes) isn't a huge task. Except for when you forgot to avoid the holey socks that day.
This just stirs the pot of the old argument again. What's so dangerous about a couple extra inches on what's virtually the same laptop? I've been caught with a 9-inch netbook in the past, being asked to remove it from my bag when going through the x-ray machine—so what gives? Perhaps the British Airways CEO Martin Broughton was bang on the buck yesterday when he branded the US' security rules as being "completely redundant." [TSA via Gadling]
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