TSA Precheck: CPAP can stay under cover

I traveled from Chicago to Philadelphia about a week ago. I travel often and got myself into the TSA Pre program, which is nice because you don't have to take shoes off, remove belts, take laptop computers out, etc. One thing I always had to do, however, was remove my CPAP machine from my carry-on luggage. This time I was told not to bother. TSA said in Chicago that a new rule allows TSA Pre passengers to keep their CPAPs in their carrying bags or suitcases. The employee could not tell me for sure that this would be true in every airport, but it was true in Philly and the employee there said that the new rule is universal. I know this doesn't help everyone, but I wanted to share the news with everyone who can benefit from it.

Recently I was at SFO and SLC airports, and both airports did not require me to take my cpap out of the case

This was not true in the past - sometimes I was asked to take the cpap out and sometimes not, traveling again to a couple of airports I have not been to for awhile, so we shall see how that goes next month

I have TSA Precheck. Recently I flew out of 3 airports. Yes, precheck experience at big airports was great, CPAP stayed in case. My third flight was out of a smaller airport that did not have the facilities for TSA Precheck. The CPAP had to come out of case, as well as shoes off, etc. Hopefully in the near future all airports will have complete TSAPC available.

Last 2X out of ONT in California there was no check of the S9 at all.

on return flight out of midway earlier this week, we were waved into the light check lane (not sure what they called it) without having done anything special. Not only did they not do anything with my CPAP machine other than the normal xray of the bag, They did not even ask me to take my laptop out of the bag. We did have the enhanced security screen on the way to midway however.

Come to think about it, I have never had to take my CPAP out of the bag. It does say RESMED on the bag.

What is TSA?

avi123 wrote:What is TSA?

Transportation Security Administration. They are the government employed security personnel at airports. Previous to 9/11 it was airport security who handled screening passengers and baggage.

http://www.tsa.gov/about-tsa

When you go through the security check, are you supposed to let your equipment run through the x-ray machine? I haven't flown with my machine yet, but wondered if the x-ray machine could mess up something.

Just home from Portland and had pre-check status -- didn't even need to unzip the carrying case this time.

But M'ohms, yes the cpap machine does have to go through the x-ray machine whether pre-check status or not. It doesn't mess the machine up.

I had the same as jacobsbd flying out of san diego in february - they just waved a bunch of us through even though we were not prescreened. Cpap & laptop went through xray without needing to remove it from the bags. They said it was a test. Made life a LOT easier i must say!

Thanks for the information!

M'ohms wrote:Thanks for the information!

You're welcome, and Happy Birthday.

Kaiasgram this may be a silly question...but is the SD card ok to leave in the machine when it goes through the x-ray? Thanks.

violetpro wrote:Kaiasgram this may be a silly question...but is the SD card ok to leave in the machine when it goes through the x-ray? Thanks.

Not a silly question -- I have never removed the SD card when traveling and I haven't had any problem. I just loaded my data into SleepyHead this morning and all looks good.

del