Was there some kind of attempt on an airplane using a kindle that I missed?
I fly a few times a year and always carry my kindle. Going through security it has always been in my carry-on and has never been questioned.
This weekend in multiple airports I had TSA agents freak out over my kindle. First, my carry-on (a backpack) was pulled for additional screening. The agent pulled out my kindle and that was it. At a different airport, I proactively removed my kindle and placed it in the provided repurposed litter-box. A TSA agent stepped over, removed the kindle from the rectangular box and placed it in its own, round receptacle (the one I have used for pocket change and keys).
On a positive note, the TSA folks were all extremely polite and friendly.:eek:
I flew in August out of Fairbanks and that direction was very explicit before we got to screening–all electronics must come out of baggage for screening. Phones, tablets, everything. (I am in Global Entry but Fairbanks doesn’t have a separate Pre-Check line so I had to pull out my Kindle, phone, iPad).
The signs I saw the last time I flew was that anything bigger than a phone had to come out. I left my phone in my bag and had no trouble. When this was new and I left my Kindle in I did have to take it out.
For years, they’ve said to remove all devices larger than a cell phone from carry-on bags, and I’ve ignored that, choosing to leave my iPad Mini in the carry-on bag and not having any problems doing so. But when I travelled most recently (late July), they saw the iPad Mini on the x-ray machine, removed the iPad Mini and rescanned it and the bag separately. So apparently now they care.
And I hope they don’t decide that “all electronics” need to come out of the bag because I’ve got a ziplock bag full of various charging cables and AC adapters, wired and wireless headphones and a separate carrying case with an expensive pair of noise-cancelling Bluetooth wireless headphones. I really don’t want to have to unpack all of that.
Flew to England recently and kept the kindle in my bag going out of Orlando and wasn’t scolded, but then going out of Canada I was. I just took it out of my bag all the other times.
Why can’t the airport be consistent? Half the time things get through one airport that don’t make it through to the other. Weird and annoying.
I flew from the UK to Canada and back in June. Took the laptop out of the rucksack but left the Kindle and two phones in with no problems in either direction.
Because it’s not security, it’s security theater, and the TSA people get bored with doing it the same way all the time. Since it doesn’t matter their supervision lets them ad lib the requirements.
I haven’t flown since June but I’ve never had to remove my Kindle. Thanks for the heads up.
At one airport I frequently fly out of, they always ask me to remove any food items and put them in a separate bin. I always carry what seems like a crazy amount of food on short flights because I’ve been subject to 6+ hours sitting on tarmacs one too many times. So I make sandwiches and bring a lot of cookies and chips.
I’ve never understood why my lunch gets extra screening at Greensboro NC.
The only TSA induced delay I’ve ever encountered came when I carried on a small container of grapefruit I bought at the gift shop outside security. I didn’t think of it as a liquid, but it was packed in light syrup. The annoyance wasnt so much as getting stopped for it, it was that the item was questionable enough that it got kicked up to a supervisor. So it took like 15 minutes. And I never got the option to say “keep the damn grapefruit, just let me in”.
And they confiscated the grapefruit, actually, they suggest that I might enjoy consuming it while standing next to the security kiosk … but no thanks.
I’m not sure precisely what their criteria are but it’s not all electronics because then there would never be time enough to screen everything. I think a good rule of thumb is “anything with a screen.”
I’m thinking “anything with a big battery”. A phone or tablet these days is 90% battery, and a battery is the only thing dense enough to pose a threat.
Fortunately I have Global Entry/PreCheck - I frequently have various bare printed circuit boards, voltmeters, etc. in my carry on. The only thing that has gotten pulled for additional screening was a camera inside an underwater housing, and they passed that without re-scanning once they saw what it was.