Latest news with #airlinesafety
The Independent
11 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Can I take my portable charger on a flight? The rules after several airlines ban using the device
With travel documents becoming increasingly digitised, knowing your phone has the charge to carry you from check-in through to customs is key for travellers. Although portable chargers may be vital to ensure a smooth journey, lithium-ion batteries commonly found inside power banks pose a fire risk to aircraft and confined cabin spaces if damaged. From 28 May, Southwest Airlines passengers must use their portable chargers and batteries in plain sight. The airline brought in the rule citing safety concerns after multiple overheating incidents. This means charging devices stored in a bag or overhead bin will no longer be permitted. The carrier believes this new policy will allow crew members to respond faster to lithium batteries overheating or catching fire. As airlines move to contain fire risks in the cabin, we address the questions: can you fly with a portable charger? And what are the rules? Can I take my portable charger on a flight? Yes. Portable chargers and power banks are usually allowed on flights, but there are restrictions on where they can be packed. Most airlines allow portable chargers packed in your carry-on luggage but not in checked luggage or any bags that will go in the hold. Generally, power banks with a capacity of 100Wh or less are permitted in the cabin without requiring airline approval. Some carriers, including Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific and Thai Airways, prohibit the use of power banks to charge personal devices during a flight. Passengers travelling on these airlines are also not allowed to charge portable power banks themselves via the onboard USB ports. What do the UK authorities say? The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says 'spare batteries for portable electronic devices containing lithium-ion batteries exceeding a Watt-hour rating of 100 Wh but not exceeding 160 Wh' are permitted in carry-on luggage for personal use. It adds: 'No more than two individually protected spare batteries per person may be carried.' Each lithium-ion cell or battery must also be 'individually protected so as to prevent short circuits'. Any spare batteries are not permitted to fly in checked baggage, warns the CAA. Foreign Office (FCDO) travel advice recommends checking 'the restrictions on certain types of batteries with your airline if you're not sure what you can carry'. What are the portable charger rules in other countries? Alongside Southwest Airlines, carriers in China, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Singapore have also implemented new power bank regulations following safety concerns. From 1 March, South Korea implemented stricter rules on carrying portable batteries on flights following a fire on an Air Busan plane on 28 January. The revised rules state that a passenger can carry a maximum of five portable batteries, each with a capacity of up to 100 watt-hours. Batteries exceeding 160 watt hours in capacity are strictly prohibited. On 7 April, the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Department banned passengers from using power banks on flights after a fire on a Hong Kong Airlines flight from Hangzhou in China on 20 March. Passengers can still take power banks in carry-on luggage, but they must keep the devices under seats or in seat pockets and not in overhead compartments. Taiwan's EVA Airways similarly bans the use and charging of power banks and spare lithium batteries on flights. Passengers can carry them in their hand luggage if they are 'properly stored to prevent compression or damage'. In March, Singapore Airlines shared a post on X stating: 'Effective 1st April 2025, Singapore Airlines customers will not be allowed to charge portable power banks via the onboard USB ports, or use power banks to charge their personal devices, throughout the duration of the flight.'
New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Nathan Fielder, Creator of ‘The Rehearsal,' Calls the F.A.A. ‘Dumb'
Nathan Fielder, the creator of the HBO comedy-documentary series 'The Rehearsal,' extended his show's commingling of performance and reality with a live appearance on CNN on Thursday. Fielder went on 'The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown' to promote the second season of 'The Rehearsal' (whose finale aired on Sunday), and to raise awareness about airline pilot safety. Fielder had been closely examining safety in the season, including the communication between pilots and co-pilots, which he argued is poor and is a key factor in many plane crashes. In the finale, Fielder himself flew a Boeing 737 passenger jet with more than 100 actors on board in an attempt to simulate inter-pilot communication on real-world commercial flights. On 'The Situation Room,' he fired back at criticism from the Federal Aviation Administration, which said in a statement to CNN that it 'isn't seeing the data that supports the show's central claim that pilot communications is to blame for airline disasters.' 'Well that's dumb, they're dumb,' Fielder said, sitting next to John Goglia, an aviation expert and former National Transportation Safety Board member who appeared as an adviser on 'The Rehearsal' this season. Fielder criticized the F.A.A.'s training standards, which he said do not adequately prepare pilots and co-pilots to speak their mind if they have a concern. 'The training is someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying 'If you are a co-pilot and the pilot does something wrong, you need to speak up about it,'' he said. 'That's all. That's the training.' On Friday, the F.A.A. said in a statement that it 'requires all airline crew members (pilots and flight attendants) and dispatchers to complete Crew Resource Management training,' which focuses on interactions among crew members. 'They must complete this training before they begin working in their official positions and complete it on a recurring basis afterward,' the F.A.A. said. Over the course of six episodes, Fielder recruited several pilots to participate in elaborate role-playing scenarios that tested their ability to navigate sensitive conversations. In one episode, a pilot was encouraged to confront his girlfriend with suspicions of disloyalty while seated next to her in a mock cockpit. In another, several pilots were graded on their ability to deliver harsh feedback to contestants in a fake singing competition show. Although the scenarios are contrived and frequently involve actors, the show also regularly depicts what appear to be genuine interactions with nonactors. The fifth episode featured an awkward interview with a congressman, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a member of the aviation subcommittee. And Goglia's appearances are played completely straight. 'It's exploded,' Goglia said on 'The Situation Room,' when asked about the public reaction to the show. 'My emails exploded, my messages exploded, my grandkids were all over me — it's unbelievable, the response.'
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
United Airlines CEO urges flyers to buy 'cheapest' tickets ever… but there's a catch
United Airline's CEO, Scott Kirby, is urging customers to snap up some of the cheapest flights he's seen from an iconic destination. After tarmac construction delays, several well-documented traffic control outages, and a wave of cancellations, travelers have been avoiding Newark International Airport. That chaos has unexpectedly created what Kirby is calling an affordable window to fly into the airport. 'Because we lost a lot of bookings, there's a lot more seats available,' Kirby said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. 'It's going to be the cheapest it's probably ever going to be in history.' Newark Airport, one of United's major US hubs, has quickly responded to safety concerns. Airlines have cut back on their Newark-bound offerings and the US Department of Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, said officials are updating equipment to minimize risk. Completion of a new communications line is expected by July. In the meantime, Kirby and Duffy have both said it is safe to fly into Newark. 'Newark is safe,' Kirby said, while calling the customer hesitance a 'perception issue.' United has cut back on 35 daily scheduled flights into its hub to help quell the traffic. Still, the airport is facing massive staffing shortages, and air flight controllers have been publicly sounding the alarm about potential safety risks. The warnings also come as Americans witnessed a series of deadly airline crashes to start the year. In January, 67 people died when a military helicopter collided with a commercial plane near Ronald Reagan National Airport. Last week, a Cessna descended into a San Diego neighborhood, killing six. Safety issues and continued drops in consumer economic sentiment have become a toxic mix for major airlines. Some of the biggest companies — including United, American, Delta, and Southwest — all expected booming sales in 2025. But domestic fliers have largely pulled back on travel spending as fears about sticky inflation and increased prices from tariffs remain. Southwest and United have both responded to the concerns by dropping some of their domestic flights from schedules. United cut its domestic flight lineup by 4 percent. Still, the company believes it will turn a profit this year. It confirmed its strong business with a quirky twist on a traditional financial outlook. The airliner reported two potential forecasts for the rest of 2025. One potential earnings forecast shows the company's finances if the US avoids a recession, while the other one shows the profit if the economy continues to contract. 'The Company's outlook is dependent on the macro environment,' United said in a filing.
The Independent
20-05-2025
- The Independent
Southwest Airlines will require chargers be kept out while in use because of battery fire concerns
Passengers on Southwest Airlines flights will soon be required to keep their portable chargers in plain sight while using them because of concerns about the growing number of lithium battery fires in a new policy that other airlines may adopt. Southwest announced the new policy that will go into effect May 28 and said passengers may already have seen notifications about the industry-leading rule when using the airline's app. There is growing concern about lithium-ion battery fires on planes because the number of incidents continues to grow yearly, and devices powered by those batteries are ubiquitous. There have already been 19 incidents involving these batteries this year, following last year's record high of 89, according to Federal Aviation Administration statistics. The incidents have more than doubled since the pandemic-era low of 39 in 2020, and have climbed annually. Compared to the roughly 180,000 flights U.S. airlines operate each week, the number of incidents is still relatively small and lithium batteries can overheat anywhere. However, this is a growing concern for the airlines. Last summer, a smoking laptop in a passenger's bag led to the evacuation of a plane awaiting takeoff at San Francisco International Airport. In 2023, a flight from Dallas to Orlando, Florida, made an emergency landing in Jacksonville, Florida, after a battery caught fire in an overhead bin. Southwest said that requiring these chargers to be kept out in the open when they are being used will help because 'in the rare event a lithium battery overheats or catches fire, quick access is critical and keeping power banks in plain sight allow for faster intervention and helps protect everyone onboard.' The airline will allow the chargers to be stored inside carry-on bags when they aren't in use. The Transportation Security Administration has long prohibited e-cigarettes and chargers and power banks with lithium-ion batteries in checked bags, but allows them in carry-on bags. The rule exists precisely because fires in the cargo hold might be harder to detect and extinguish. The FAA recommends passengers keep cell phones and other devices nearby on planes so they can access them quickly. The agency said flight crews are trained to recognize and respond to lithium battery fires. Passengers should notify the flight crew immediately if their lithium battery or device is overheating, expanding, smoking or burning. A previous report released last year by UL Standards & Engagement said e-cigarettes overheated more often than any other device. More than one-quarter of passengers surveyed for that study said they put vaping cigarettes and portable chargers in checked bags. That is against federal rules. UL Standards & Engagement, part of a safety-science company once known as Underwriters Laboratories, said it based its findings on data from 35 passenger and cargo airlines, including nine of the 10 leading U.S. passenger carriers.
Associated Press
20-05-2025
- Associated Press
Southwest Airlines will require chargers be kept out while in use because of battery fire concerns
Passengers on Southwest Airlines flights will soon be required to keep their portable chargers in plain sight while using them because of concerns about the growing number of lithium battery fires in a new policy that other airlines may adopt. Southwest announced the new policy that will go into effect May 28 and said passengers may already have seen notifications about the industry-leading rule when using the airline's app. There is growing concern about lithium-ion battery fires on planes because the number of incidents continues to grow yearly, and devices powered by those batteries are ubiquitous. There have already been 19 incidents involving these batteries this year, following last year's record high of 89, according to Federal Aviation Administration statistics. The incidents have more than doubled since the pandemic-era low of 39 in 2020, and have climbed annually. Compared to the roughly 180,000 flights U.S. airlines operate each week, the number of incidents is still relatively small and lithium batteries can overheat anywhere. However, this is a growing concern for the airlines. Last summer, a smoking laptop in a passenger's bag led to the evacuation of a plane awaiting takeoff at San Francisco International Airport. In 2023, a flight from Dallas to Orlando, Florida, made an emergency landing in Jacksonville, Florida, after a battery caught fire in an overhead bin. Southwest said that requiring these chargers to be kept out in the open when they are being used will help because 'in the rare event a lithium battery overheats or catches fire, quick access is critical and keeping power banks in plain sight allow for faster intervention and helps protect everyone onboard.' The airline will allow the chargers to be stored inside carry-on bags when they aren't in use. The Transportation Security Administration has long prohibited e-cigarettes and chargers and power banks with lithium-ion batteries in checked bags, but allows them in carry-on bags. The rule exists precisely because fires in the cargo hold might be harder to detect and extinguish. The FAA recommends passengers keep cell phones and other devices nearby on planes so they can access them quickly. The agency said flight crews are trained to recognize and respond to lithium battery fires. Passengers should notify the flight crew immediately if their lithium battery or device is overheating, expanding, smoking or burning. A previous report released last year by UL Standards & Engagement said e-cigarettes overheated more often than any other device. More than one-quarter of passengers surveyed for that study said they put vaping cigarettes and portable chargers in checked bags. That is against federal rules. UL Standards & Engagement, part of a safety-science company once known as Underwriters Laboratories, said it based its findings on data from 35 passenger and cargo airlines, including nine of the 10 leading U.S. passenger carriers.
