In-Flight Fire Risk: Airline Bans Portable Phone Chargers in Overhead Bins

In the US, portable power banks, backup chargers, and any type of lithium batteries have been banned from checked bags for several years. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), “Power Banks, cell phone battery charging cases, rechargeable and non-rechargeable lithium batteries, cell phone batteries, laptop batteries, power banks, external batteries, [and] portable rechargers must be in carry-on bags, as they can cause “thermal runaway” when packed in check bags — meaning they could start fires in the luggage hold. Though it may sound unlikely, the FAA database has more than 500 recorded incidents of smoke or heat from batteries in checked bags since 2006.

But one international airline is taking it a step further, telling customers not only can they not check portable power banks — they can’t even put them in the overhead bins.

Any portable or back-up chargers now need to be in your personal item under the seat on Busan Air. Photo: Skrypnykov Dmytro/Shutterstock

Air Busan is a small-but-growing low-cost airline based in South Korea, and it announced in early February 2025 that lithium batteries must be stored in sight of travelers. Flyers need to carry them in the bags they store under the seats in front of them, not in the overhead bins. The idea is that passengers will be able to keep a closer eye on those items, and notice sooner any heat- or smoke-related issues.The news was first reported by Reuters and comes in response to a January 28 incident in which an Air Busan airplane caught fire while preparing to depart Gimhae International Airport. (All 166 on board were safely evacuated.) Though the cause of the fire has yet to be determined, an Air Busan source told reporters that the fire was first noticed by a flight attendant, who saw smoke coming from an overhead bin.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Al Jazeera English (@aljazeeraenglish)

The change is expected to go into effect on March 1, 2025. Passengers will have their bags searched before boarding, and only bags without lithium batteries will be marked with a safe tag, and allowed to be stored in overhead bins. The airline stated that trials of the program will start in Busan, South Korea, before it becomes a company-wide policy. As of now, no other airlines have publicly announced plans to implement similar restrictions on power banks in overhead bins. However, most US airlines do announce before takeoff that passengers should tell the flight attendants if their phone falls between seats, as this can cause thermal runaway.

So far in 2025, there have been three confirmed issues of thermal runaway in US airspace. They include a January 2 incident in which a Honolulu-bound passenger accidentally activated two vape pens in flight, and incidents on January 8 and January 15 in which passengers’ cell phones went into thermal runaway. In all instances, flight attendants were able to put the devices in on-board thermal containment bags, and the flights continued without incident.