Rechargeable battery shipments to be barred from airliners

A United Nations panel already approved the idea that the shipments of rechargeable lithium batteries be banned from passenger airliners since the batteries may create fires capable of destroying planes.

The decision by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organisation’s top-level governing council is not binding, but most countries follow the agency’s standards.

The Council’s decision will be effective 1 April, 2016.

Lithium-ion batteries are used in a vast array of products, from cellphones and laptops to some electric cars. That’s near the melting point of aluminum, which is used in aircraft construction.

It doesn’t apply to cargo-only airlines or to batteries already installed in phones, computers or other equipment, meaning individual passengers won’t have to leave their batteries behind.

The FAA is reporting that one bad battery can cause a chain reaction among other ion batteries-called thermal runaway-resulting in an explosion which could theoretically take down a passenger aircraft. A single cargo container can hold thousands of batteries.

Back in October, the US’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would back such a ban, while warning passengers not to pack spare lithium metal and spare rechargeable lithium ion batteries in their checked baggage.

The Air Line Pilots Association said lawmakers should have enacted a ban of their own to show the U.S.is serious about preventing fires on-board planes that have been associated with the lithium batteries in recent years.

“This has been a long time coming, and is justified by the risk these batteries pose in transportation”, said Mark Rogers of the Air Line Pilots Association in North America. Representatives from the Netherlands and France on the unsafe goods panel voted last autumn against a ban.

The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition that he not be named.

The group that lobbies for battery markers in Washington, PRBA – The Rechargeable Battery Association, said the “decision by the ICAO Council was not unexpected”, although its industry strongly disagrees with the regulators’ conclusions.

“When the industry banned the shipment of lithium-metal batteries, we saw instances of them being passed off as lithium-ion batteries”, an expert familiar with ICAO’s move told Reuters, questioning whether a ban on the batteries would make passenger planes safer.