Starting May 1, American Airlines Will Require Power Banks To Stay Visible During Flights

by Gary Leff

Starting Friday May 1, American Airlines will banning charging a portable power bank onboard and having it hidden or out of reach during flight. It is also limiting passengers to two power banks apiece, not more than 100Wh each.

  • Two portable chargers per passenger max.
  • 100 watt-hours each max.
  • They must be visible and within reach during flight.
  • You may use a portable charger to charge your phone/laptop, but only if it stays visible and reachable.
  • You may not recharge the portable charger from the seat outlet or seatback USB port.
  • You may still charge phones, laptops, and other items directly from aircraft seat power.

“Visible and within reach” means in the seatback pocket, on the tray table, on your body or otherwise accessible. In other words, it can’t be buried in a bag in the overhead bin.

Current policy on the American Airlines website shows four lithium ion batteries under 100Wh allowed in carry-on bags, and 2 that are 100–160Wh “with airline approval.”

The concern is thermal runaway in a place crew can’t see a fire or react quickly. The FAA put out a safety alert last year saying portable chargers can ignite onboard, and batteries in overhead bins or carry-on bags can be hard to access and not readily monitored, delaying firefighting.

  • Halon suppresses flames but does not stop thermal runaway
  • The best approach is cooling with large amounts of water.

None of this is new. The FAA reported 97 battery incidents involving smoke, fire, or extreme heat in 2025 and 89 in 2024.

This is why it was such a dangerous idea when the federal government sought to ban electronics in the passenger cabin in 2017, requiring customers to check them as baggage instead. Those fires might not get contained.

However, there’s no FAA mandate on this. ICAO announced power bank limits to two per passenger and prohibiting passengers from recharging them during flights. IATA this year offered guidance saying power banks should be carry-on only, must not be recharged onboard, no more than two per person, and should not be used to recharge a portable electronic device onboard.

American’s rule tracks this on two per passenger and no onboard recharging, but it is less strict than the IATA recommendation because American still permits using the power bank to charge a device if it stays visible and within reach.

Southwest is stricter than American. Since April 20, Southwest limits passengers to one lithium portable charger, bans overhead bin stowage, and bans recharging it with in-seat power (to the extent Southwest even offers this). Southwest had already required power banks to be visible while in use since May 2025.

Internationally some airlines are stricter still – for instance Lufthansa does not permit power bricks to be used onboard, allows carrying two per passenger, and may only be stored in the seat pocket, on a passenger, or under seat (not in the overhead). Singapore Airlines limits to two power bricks, bans them in overhead bins, doesn’t permit charging them onboard and says they cannot be used inflight. Emirates says passengers can bring only one – under 100Wh – and cannot use them inflight. Qantas won’t allow them to be used inflight, either.

U.S. airlines board fire containment bags and heat resistant gloves on aircraft. That way when electronic devices catch fire they can deal with it. Once the electronics that caught fire is isolated, the fire containment bag gets stored in a metal cart in the galley, to be retrieved when the aircraft lands. Several world airlines, including Southwest Airlines, now requires that passengers keep portable charging devices in plain sight.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. The IATA guidance makes sense. People have died because of power pack fires starting in inaccessible places. AA and Southwest are doing the right thing.

  4. Stupid, trying to distinguish power banks from other devices–lots of PD-capable devices are designed to deliver power as well as store it for their own use.

    Requiring them to be visible is fine, though.

  5. I agree with the ban on charging from power banks, during flight, as I’ve had my share of power banks that think they are a griddle whilst charging devices… (yes, personally, I get a new one power bank when that happens!)

    However, there are numerous other devices which have lithium, laptops you mentioned – a decade ago a former ThinkPad running Windows decided to awaken from sleep in my backpack that was above my head. Now I power the laptop du jour off… Every time – and I can’t see every bag being checked in detail for a lithium device

    I suspect incidences will continue to happen, airlines will ensure they have burn bags, and both phone manufacturers and laptop manufacturers will hope their name doesn’t appear on the naughty list (formally known as the Samsung Note list, for some reason)

  6. Reasons we have this problem:

    1. Ubiquity of Amazon.
    2. Amazon’s lax standards for product safety. Traditional retail stores (even Walmart!) only sell electronics that have UL or ETL certification. Amazon doesn’t give a shit.
    3. Impotence of legislators to enforce product liability upon Amazon.

    UL (and ETL, which adheres to the UL spec) actually matters. We as consumers never had to think about this in the past because retailers did the work for us. Now? Jeff Bezos laughs while our flights burn.

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