The scoop on new air travel battery rules

On December 28, an Associated Press story was making the rounds that said in part:

To help reduce the risk of fires, air travelers will no longer be able to pack loose lithium batteries in checked luggage beginning January 1, the Transportation Department said Friday.

Passengers can still check baggage with lithium batteries, if they are installed in electronic devices, such as cameras, cell phones, and laptop computers. If packed in plastic bags, batteries may be in carry-on baggage. The limit is two batteries per passenger.

This caused me to perk up at my computer. After all, I routinely travel with at least three spare rechargeable lithium ion batteries (one for my computer, one for my Treo, one for my digital camera) and often more. On some trips, I might also carry various spare nonrechargeable lithium metal batteries for various gear. The checked-luggage thing was no big deal, but if I were truly limited to two spare batteries in my carry-on luggage, that would have been an issue.

The story kicked up the predictable firestorm, only somewhat muted by its appearance over the holidays. Fortunately, it turns out to be incomplete on a critical point. You can find more detailed background and analysis elsewhere, but I thought that it would be useful to reiterate a few critical points, given the incorrect information floating around (and the fact that the Department of Transportation Web page that "explains" the rule is written in rather confusing government speak).

• Loose (i.e., those not installed in equipment) lithium and lithium ion batteries may, in fact, no longer be put into checked luggage.
• The "two-battery limit" applies only to lithium ion batteries with more than "8 grams of equivalent lithium content, (which) is approximately 100 watt-hours." The Reader's Digest version is that this limit roughly corresponds to the largest notebook batteries.

  In other words, this limit shouldn't much affect most travelers because there's no limit on typical camera, cell phone, toy, and notebook batteries. So what is affected? Things like external notebook and professional videographer batteries. (I suspect that independent videographers will be one of the groups this new rule could inconvenience.)

• One issue is that implementing the rule in the field is basically impossible, unless the screeners are just given some rule of thumb like "no limit on notebook batteries or anything smaller."

  My notebook battery is marked only with a voltage and a milliAmp (current) rating. One can convert this to grams of equivalent lithium content (0.3 x voltage x Ah), but somehow, I don't see the screeners at security scrutinizing the label rating of batteries (when present) and whipping out calculators. So we'll have to see how notebook batteries in particular end up being counted, though I don't really expect issues around smaller camera and cell phone batteries.

• There is no limit on batteries below the 100 watt-hour limit in carry-on luggage.
• The other relevant part of the rule is that loose batteries are now supposed to be placed in individual plastic bags or otherwise stored in a way that their contacts can't be shorted out. It's impossible to say to what degree this will be enforced, but it's probably something else to put on your travel prep list.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that--much fevered commentary aside--this is not some new inane security rule. It's a response to lithium batteries being suspected as the cause in at least one cargo plane fire. Laptops have also burst into flames rather dramatically because of battery problems. Thus, lithium and lithium ion batteries are known to be problematic from a safety perspective.

However, it's also the case that the mobile-information age essentially runs on these batteries, and any outright ban would be incredibly disruptive. The trick, as always, is therefore to strike a reasonable balance between safety and convenience. These new rules seems to do that--at least on paper.

[elbig]

I wonder if I connect my battery to the charger whether that will be considered as "installed"?

[ghaff]

Possibly. This issue is discussed in this post on the Photo Business Forum: http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/2008/01/li-ion-battery-ban-solution-for-airline.html

However, this is hardly definitive. I've also seen discussion of whether containers specially designed to fold batteries would qualify.

[roland827]

They should probably ban laptops that has motherboard problems too.. My Compaq V2000 suddenly blew smoke one time, and it was out of warranty (just over a year) so I opened it up... I plugged it in, and looked for the spot where it was smoking, and I saw sparks coming out from the motherboard, which I initially thought was a small led light. A few seconds later it then turned into a small flame!

I told Compaq about this, and even opened a BBB complaint... they didn't even gave a reply (to the BBB complaint) and their helpdesk said there is no Motherboard recall (but I've search the web and saw lots of MB complaints about this type of laptop)...

Essentially, laptops with these type of problems are more dangerous than spare batteries that aren't even plugged in...

[Dalkorian]

Just what we need, more confusion for the morons at the airport to cause problems with. Good luck with that, experience tells me you'll get by fine in some airports, then suddenly between flights you'll have to throw your batteries away or be arrested for resisting the nazi TSA. Papers, please.

Myself, I'll either drive or take the train. Being forced to prove that I'm not a terrorist is not the American way, anyone remember the old saying "innocent until proven guilty"?

Before some pro-nazi repukinazicon bush supporter starts again with the tired terrorism claims, try to remember who the real terrorists are. Hint, they are not hiding in Pakistan, nor are they in Iraq. They live in a big White House ...