Strange permanent border around the screen

Hi All! I've come across a large quantity of 2011 11" MacBooks Airs, and most of them have a strange line on either the right or the left side (see picture). It's actually not really a line in the usual sense, but more a gap on the screen. It's as if the actual screen display is being squashed to a smaller part of the screen than the whole screen. I have several that literally have a 1" border all the way around the screen, and the display is squashed into a box in the center (I supposed this could be called a 10" Air? :-)

Anyway, I don't anticipate this is repairable, but I wanted to run it by everyone and see what you know about this kind of screen damage. I can't imagine what would cause it, and it's especially strange that I would get dozens of them all with the same kind of problem. To me it looks like a manufacturing defect, but in that case why wouldn't the owner not take them all back to Apple for replacement?

Curious to see what you think.

Thanks!

John