Multiple airlines to ban use of portable power banks on flights

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar passengers will soon have to keep power banks within sight and easily accessible throughout flights. The measure is in response to multiple battery related fires on planes in recent months.

Transcript

00:00they can't use them and they can't charge them using any kind of USB-C port in the actual seat

00:08itself. And if you've flown recently, particularly Qantas, you may have heard the announcement say

00:15you must hold your power bank in your hands as we take off and land. You can't leave it in that

00:22overhead locker. And that's again as a result of these power banks going up inside the locker

00:27and then they're difficult to kind of reach and they're exposed to other things that are

00:34flammable. So it's easy for that fire to spread. Myself and other experts around the world that

00:38research electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery fires have been very concerned about this issue.

00:44So here in Australia, we've had at least four lithium-ion battery fires on aircraft,

00:50including the most recent one that attracted a lot of attention on the way to Hobart.

00:54But in places like the US, we're seeing at least one a week. So around the world,

01:00we're seeing these incidents actually increasing as more and more batteries are carried on board.

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