Southwest Airlines will soon begin limiting how many portable chargers and power banks you can bring on a flight, according to an internal message obtained by Southwest Airlines. New York Times.
As of April 20, passengers will only be able to bring one portable charger with a lithium battery per person on the flight, and they will not be allowed to charge those portable chargers using power at the seat, nor will they be able to store them in overhead bins. Instead, passengers will be asked to store their portable chargers throughout the flight or in a carry-on bag under their seats.
Lithium batteries power most of the technology we use in our daily lives, from phones to laptops to e-cigarettes. They are also found in portable chargers and power banks.
Most of the time they work fine, but if they are damaged, overcharged, or overheated, batteries can catch fire. Due to the chemicals in these batteries, they can be highly flammable hard to turn off.
Because of this risk, portable chargers were long banned from checked baggage, with airlines requiring passengers to put portable chargers and any other lithium battery-powered devices in carry-on bags.
However, there were 97 incidents involving lithium batteries in aviation in 2025, and 14 accidents have already occurred this year. Federal Aviation Administration. Most lithium battery weather incidents involving smoke, fire, or overheating are caused by portable chargers. According to FAA data, the second biggest culprit is e-cigarettes.
The most recent incident happened in January 2025 when an Airbus plane caught fire on the tarmac at the airport of Busan, South Korea. Everyone on board had to be evacuated and it took about an hour to extinguish the fire. The authorities later came to this conclusion power bank Keeping it in the overhead bin may be to blame. A few months later, one Air China flight During the flight, the lithium battery in the bin spontaneously ignited, so it had to make an emergency landing.
Chinese regulators have completely banned portable batteries from flights unless the device is clearly marked with a Chinese safety certificate and is not subject to recall. Many international airlines have also banned passengers from using or charging portable chargers, but Southwest is the only major American airline to date to come up with an even stricter set of rules for portable chargers.
One way to protect yourself from these spontaneous fires is to keep a close eye on product recalls. Anchorone of the world’s leading power bank manufacturers has issued several recalls over the past year due to potential fire risks.
