New one for me.

Announcement after boarding complete - but not during the safety briefing.

Power Banks are not to be stored in bags or used during the flight. Instead they must be stored in the back of the seat during flight.

When I asked was told there had been an incident with one recently in the overhead.

More than happy to unplug mine but do wish BA displayed and said the rules more prominently. I'm usually headphones on apart from the safety briefing and this announcement came out with it.

Heard this on my flight from LHR-MAN on Saturday, although there was no mention of it on the earlier LPA-LGW flight a few hours before,

Think the rules also stipulate that a maximum of two power banks can be taken on board. I usually take 4 or 5

More details about the new ICAO guidance here:

https://www.caa.co.uk/commercial-ind...d-power-banks/

and BA info here

https://www.britishairways.com/content/information/baggage-essentials/liquids-and-restrictions

BA's guidance says they must be stowed in the seat pocket or in a bag under the seat.

Nothing about not using them in flight to charge a portable device in the BA guidance, although the CAA guidance does say this.

Although AFAIK there wasn�t an incident with BA specifically, this has come about from changes to ICAO dangerous goods regulations - as there�s been a spate of power bank fires (particularly in Asia), even resulting in a complete write off of an A321 in South Korea (though thankfully only minor injuries occurred).

The CAA guidance says that it �should not be used to charge PEDs�� which means that is left to the discretion of the operator based on their risk assessments.

Whereas it says �Must not be charged onboard� (the power bank itself) as that�s what the regulation specifies.

There have been a few instances recently of fires in overhead lockers caused by powerbanks going into thermal overload (you can google them).
If this happens in the overhead the fire has more of a chance to become severe before someone notices it, so it is much more dangerous.
That's what is behind these changes.
China already had a ban on most powerbanks at all on internal flights unless they have the proper Chinese certification (which no Western ones do).
This is also why I would no longer consider buying cheap 'no mark' products that contain lithium ion batteries as it is these that tend to be the ones that go bang (powerbanks, vapes, electric scooters etc). Although there is a risk from many legit products as well (as was the case with the Samsung phones previously).
So the restrictions make some sort of sense although I can't see how they are going to enforce it (as they also can't do with requests to put devices into flight mode).

I had this on my recent flight too - seemed strange that they waited until after everyone was seated and we were about to pushback to announce this - they should have added it to all the announcements about not putting small bags and coats in the lockers so people could get organised before departure

Has this on my flight yesterday but they had it at a bad time; once we were pushing back and everyone was seated.

If you had forgotten to take a power bank out of your bag you�d have to wait until we were in the air to get it out. May be slightly better to announce as folk board, especially as the rules are fairly new.

anybody know when BA changed their rules?

most airlines have properly announced the same changes as BA have made - so it meant that they got covered by the media, and passengers actually found out about them!
since BA's rules are wholly uncontroversial, it seems weird that they haven't properly publicised them.


BA powerbank rules - screenshot

Had the same announchment (not on the overhead lockers and not to be used during the flight) on my flight back to Heathrow yesterday morning, but not on the outbound 10 days ago

The powerbank announcement has been incorporated last week into the onboard announcements. It�s a bit tricky to see and timings of these announcements have been questioned with management and the safety team as once boarding is complete most people will have sat down, then having to get up and remove those power banks, if they listen and if they choose to comply, of course. We all know there be some people who think they do not have to.

On a side note and off topic, the amount of lithium batteries and charging devices is becoming a real issue in aviation so I wouldn�t be surprised if eventually the likes of Powerbanksmay be totally banned onboard like they do in some parts of Asia

Lufthansa had an evacuation in Athens this morning because of a smoking power bank…

That would be spectacularly unlucky as LH had a return to base from ATH yesterday because of a smoking APU.

My bad, I woke up to 2 Lufthansa videos and assumed they were the same incident�they weren�t.

I bought a Belkin powerbank from Argos before my trip to China last year, specifically so I had one with the CCC mark.

Lots of British passengers coming off the Heathrow flight and transferring to domestic flights didn't know, and had their powerbanks binned.

Passengers connecting to international flights had their non CCC powerbanks taken off them, and returned to them at the gate shortly before boarding.