They’re placing the squeeze on further juice.
Southwest Airways is implementing a stunning new restriction on moveable chargers to maintain these notoriously incendiary gadgets from bursting into flame mid-flight.
Beginning Could 28, passengers will probably be required to maintain their energy banks in plain sight, making the price range service the primary to roll out a coverage of this sort.
“Utilizing moveable charging gadgets whereas saved in a bag or overhead bin will not be permitted,” a Southwest spokesperson informed Enterprise Insider. “Nothing is extra necessary to Southwest than the protection of its prospects and staff.”
The airways will, nonetheless, permit passengers to maintain the gadgets of their carry-on baggage when not in use.
The logic is that the moveable cellphone juicers run on lithium-ion batteries that may overheat and ignite, so protecting them in plain sight permits flight attendants to establish and extinguish the hazard earlier than it’s too late.
“Within the uncommon occasion a lithium battery overheats or catches hearth, fast entry is important and protecting energy banks in plain sight permits for sooner intervention and helps shield everybody onboard,” a Southwest rep mentioned, based on Fortune.
In March, passengers flying from Malaysia to Thailand have been thrown right into a panic after an influence financial institution ignited within the overhead bin and crammed the cabin with smoke proper earlier than touchdown.
Whereas Southwest has not carried out the coverage but, passengers have been receiving notifications through the airline’s app warning them to maintain the chargers out of their baggage and “in plain sight” and to chorus from placing them within the baggage compartments, per a viral Reddit submit.
This coverage comes amid an annual uptick in incidents of energy banks catching hearth in-flight.
In response to Federal Aviation Administration statistics, there have already been 19 incidents involving batteries in 2025, whereas final 12 months there have been a report 89 charger-related points.
Though nonetheless a comparatively low threat when factoring within the roughly 180,000 flights US airways function every week, air carriers have been ramping up restrictions on the blaze-inducing battery boosters.
Korean Airways not too long ago prohibited passengers from storing chargers in overhead bins, requiring them to as a substitute hold the gadgets in plastic baggage or cowl their ports with insulation tape to forestall them from touching metallic.
This coverage was carried out in response to a devastating inferno that injured seven passengers aboard an Air Busan airplane in January, though it’s unclear if the flames have been attributable to a battery.
In the meantime, Singapore Airways and Thai Airways now ban using moveable chargers throughout flights, whereas Australia’s Qantas Airways requires that they be saved in carry-on baggage solely.
And it’s not simply airways which might be tightening controls over these inadvertent explosive gadgets.
The Transportation Safety Administration simply banned lithium-battery-powered moveable chargers from checked baggage following a brand new advisory from the FAA.
“When a carry-on bag is checked on the gate or at planeside, all spare lithium batteries and energy banks should be faraway from the bag and saved with the passenger within the plane cabin,” the FAA wrote. “The battery terminals should be shielded from brief circuit[ing].”
