Published: July 1, 2008--
For years at airport security checkpoints, passengers have heard the refrain, almost a dirge: "Laptops must be removed from their cases and placed on the belt."

Get ready for a change. The Transportation Security Administration has given the go-ahead for passengers to use newly designed carry-on bags that will let them pass through security without having to take their laptops out for the X-ray inspection.

Kip Hawley, the agency's director, told me Monday that the T.S.A. would accept the new laptop cases as soon as they come on the market.

Two of the biggest luggage manufacturers -- Pathfinder Luggage and Targus -- say they are rushing to produce the new "checkpoint friendly" laptop cases and expect them to be available by late September or early October.

Two problems with the existing laptop cases are that security officers have difficulty seeing inside them with X-ray equipment, and many of the cases are so crammed with extra gear -- power cords, a mouse and the like -- that the computer is obscured.

The new cases include either a fold-down section in a bigger briefcase or a stand-alone protective sleeve that contains no extra clutter and can be readily viewed through the scanner.

More than a half-dozen luggage manufacturers, among about 60 that initially responded to a T.S.A. request for proposals about three months ago, have submitted prototypes for testing at checkpoints at three airports: Dulles, outside Washington; Austin-Bergstrom in Texas; and Ontario, near Los Angeles.

The agency says that more than a quarter of all air travelers carry laptops through security.

Along with having to remove shoes, the requirement to take a laptop out of its protective case has long rankled business travelers, who worry about damage to exposed computers as well as potential loss in the pileup of various travelers' possessions on the other side of the X-ray station.

Mr. Hawley, meanwhile, has often said that confusion at checkpoints is itself a security problem. Designing laptop cases that can improve customer service while keeping security at a high level is a way to better ensure a "calm and predictable" checkpoint environment, he said.

"Threats have a hard time hiding in a calm environment," he said. "Chaos is great camouflage."

Mr. Hawley said the agency had been working with various manufacturers to develop the new luggage designs. He predicted that various new laptop cases that conform to government requirements would be in wide use by the holidays in December.

"On a conference call with industry representatives, I said that the T.S.A. will not be your gatekeeper on this," Mr. Hawley said. "It all depends on how fast you can get to market. We won't slow you down."

Ron Davis, the executive vice president of Pathfinder Luggage, said that his company had just started producing its two new cases at a plant in the Philippines. He said both had been tested at checkpoints to ensure that they met government specifications.