Japanese airlines, including JAL and ANA, enacting new mobile battery carry-on rules this month
One of the great conveniences about modern travel is that there's no longer a need to pack a bulky guidebook, multiple maps, a camera with spare film, and reading/listening material to keep yourself entertained on the plane ride to your destination. Nowadays, your phone can handle all that stuff for you but the tradeoff is that if your battery goes dead, you lose access to all of those things.
So if you're getting ready for a big trip to Japan soon, there's a pretty good chance that you're bringing not only your phone with you, but a mobile battery/power bank too. If so, though, you'll want to be aware of new rules regarding bringing such items onboard planes of Japan Airlines/JAL, ANA, and many other Japanese carriers.
The new rules were developed jointly by the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan and the Japanese government's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, who cited the incident that took place in January at South Korea's Gimhae International Airport in which a fire broke out in an Air Busan airliner as it was preparing for takeoff, requiring an emergency evacuation and resulting in injuries to multiple passengers. The source of the fire was traced to a mobile battery inside a passenger's carry-on bag which they had placed in an overhead bin.
To prevent such a situation from occurring, the new Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan/MLITT rules prohibit placing mobile batteries in overhead compartments. With mobile batteries already not allowed to be placed in checked luggage, this leaves carry-on luggage under passengers' seats or seatback pockets as the only remaining places for them during flight, so that if a battery begins smoking or burning it can be more quickly noticed and dealt with by the cabin crew. In addition, if the battery is being used to charge another device or is itself being charged via onboard power outlets, the rules state that it should be in an accessible location where its current condition can be easily monitored.
The Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan consists of the following 19 airlines: ● Japan Airlines/JAL ● ANA ● Peach ● Jetstar ● Zipair ● NCA ● JTA ● JAC ● Air Do ● Air Japan ● Solaseed Air ● Starflyer ● ANA Wings ● J-Air ● Skymark Airlines ● FDA ● Spring Japan
● Ibex
It's unclear whether the Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan's authority extends to flights operated by its members for routes entirely outside of Japan, but at the very least the regulations will apply to international flights to/from Japan on those airlines, as well as domestic flights within Japan.
The new regulations go into effect July 8.
Source: Scheduled Airlines Association of Japan (1, 2) via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
● Want to hear about SoraNews24's latest articles as soon as they're published? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kyodo News
18 minutes ago
- Kyodo News
FOCUS: Manga quake "prophecies" keeping H.K. travelers away from Japan
HONG KONG - Kyoto-based academic German Cheung adopted a "better safe than sorry" approach to the prospect of an earthquake in Japan in early July, despite having traveled to his hometown in Hong Kong just two months earlier. For his escape, the 47-year-old associate professor of international relations spent 35,000 yen ($243) on a return ticket to Hong Kong departing Friday, one day before a seismic calamity was predicted to occur. He plans to return to Japan next week. Since January, soothsayers in Hong Kong have talked up potential natural disasters in Japan, with the feng shui practitioners -- who generally trade in recommendations about personal arrangements and physical directions of belongings -- advising residents to steer clear of the country. The fortune-tellers referenced a Japanese graphic novel "The Future I Saw" in which artist Ryo Tatsuki predicted a "major calamity" in March 2011, coinciding with a catastrophic quake-tsunami that struck Japan's northeast and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. In 2021, Tatsuki updated her work and made another prediction, this time for a cataclysmic earthquake she said would hit Japan in July 2025. The press and social media caught on, creating a perfect storm of concern. The speculation has caused anxiety among Hong Kong travelers, with the number visiting Japan in May declining 11.2 percent from the previous year to 193,100. The former British colony, which ranked as the fourth-largest source of Japan-bound tourists in 2024, was the only market to record a fall in May, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Cheung, who puts faith in feng shui-based prophecies, said it is easier to "just avoid July" in Japan, at least "from a Hongkonger's perspective." Among the first to suffer a blow were travel agencies and airlines. WWPKG, a holiday operator based in Hong Kong, saw Japan tour bookings halve in April and expects a further decline of up to 80 percent between June and August compared to the same period last year. At least two Hong Kong-based airlines have reduced or decided to suspend flights to destinations in Japan, including Fukuoka, Sendai, Nagoya, Tokushima, Sapporo, Yonago, Kagoshima and Kumamoto. "This is a result of a long-term accumulation of negative news," said Yuen Chun-ning, managing director of WWPKG, which specializes in tours to Japan. The manga itself, as well as feng shui practitioners and social media influencers who brought the message forward across Hong Kong, "all have played a role," he added. Situated on the Pacific Ring of Fire, Japan is accustomed to the Earth's seismic wrath. But an unprecedented alert issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency last August, warning about the increased risk of a massive quake around the Nankai Trough stretching from central to southwestern Japan along the Pacific coast, hit a nerve. Manga artist Tatsuki, who cited a prophetic dream in "The Future I Saw," suggested a fissure could appear in the seabed between Japan and the Philippines on July 5, with tsunamis extending as far as Indonesia and the Northern Mariana Islands in the northwestern Pacific. The author has been credited with foreseeing the magnitude-9.0 quake that rocked northeastern Japan's Tohoku region on March 11, 2011. The online panic about Tatsuki's next prediction was propagated by feng shui practitioners and psychics, with some advising that people should avoid areas located northeast of Hong Kong this year, such as Japan and South Korea. Qi Xianyu, a popular feng shui master and television personality in Hong Kong, urged people not to travel to Japan after April, with such recommendations from her and others causing an economic ripple effect across the tourism industry. But Qi refuses to take any blame for flight cancellations and the fall in travel bookings, saying, "Actually, it's really unfair." "There are also many who don't believe in me. If something gets better, I don't get credit, but now that things go wrong, you think it's my fault," she complained. Japanese meteorological authorities have dismissed the rumor-mongering as unscientific, while seismologists have cautioned that accurately forecasting the timing of an earthquake remains virtually impossible. Tatsuki recently revised her words and said big things "may not necessarily happen" on Saturday. But the damage has been done, with WWPKG's Yuen pessimistic about a possible rebound in Japan-bound tourism after July 5. "Out of concern, some customers said outright they won't go to Japan this year," Yuen said. "The bigger and more news reports out there, the slower the recovery will be."
an hour ago
13 Residents Evacuate Strong Quake-Hit Akusekijima Island
News from Japan Society Jul 4, 2025 13:20 (JST) Kagoshima, July 4 (Jiji Press)--A dozen of residents left Akusekijima aboard a ship Friday morning after a powerful earthquake rocked the Tokara chain island in southwestern Japan the previous day. The 13 voluntary evacuees on the ferry run by the village of Toshima in Kagoshima Prefecture are scheduled to arrive shortly past 6 p.m. at Kagoshima Port in the prefecture's capital in the mainland. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, the 5.5-magnitude earthquake, the largest so far of the latest earthquake swarm hitting the island group, registered lower 6, the third highest on the Japanese seismic intensity scale, on Akusekijima around 4:13 p.m. Thursday. The Toshima village office said there were 76 people, mostly residents, on the island at the time of the quake and that none of them was injured. The first batch of evacuees, comprising six elementary and junior high school students and seven others aged 0 to 80, are set to stay at a hotel in the city of Kagoshima and other places. [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.] Jiji Press
Asahi Shimbun
2 hours ago
- Asahi Shimbun
Residents of quake-hit isle in southern Japan begin evacuating
Evacuating residents of Akusekijima board a village-operated ferry on July 4. (Provided by Kagoshima Broadcasting Corp.) TOSHIMA, Kagoshima Prefecture--Residents of Akusekijima island in the remote and sparsely populated Tokara chain began evacuating voluntarily early July 4 following a strong earthquake the evening before. The southern Japan island chain has been hit by an earthquake swarm over the past two weeks. The latest temblor had a seismic intensity of lower 6 on the Japanese scale of 7. Thirteen residents aged up to 80 years old from the village of Toshima boarded the regular ferry operated by the municipality and headed to Kagoshima Port some 250 kilometers away in Kagoshima. More than 1,000 earthquakes with a seismic intensity of 1 or higher have been recorded in the Tokara island chain since June 21. Village authorities decided to offer voluntary evacuation following the latest activity because residents were unable to sleep and 'increasingly stressed out.' The ferry is scheduled to arrive at Kagoshima Port at 6:20 p.m. The evacuees are scheduled to spend about a week at a hotel in Kagoshima. The accommodation was arranged by the village.
