Southwest’s Charger Rule

Southwest is about to treat your portable charger less like a phone accessory and more like a loose battery pack: starting April 20, passengers can bring only one power bank, and it cannot go in an overhead bin or a checked bag. (southwest.com(support.southwest.com), nbcnewyork.com(nbcnewyork.com)) The airline is also banning passengers from recharging that power bank in an in-seat outlet, and it says the charger has to stay visible while in use instead of disappearing inside a backpack. (nbcnewyork.com(nbcnewyork.com), southwest.com(support.southwest.com)) The reason is not the plastic brick itself. The problem is the lithium battery inside it, which can overheat so fast that the Federal Aviation Administration calls it a “thermal runaway” event, meaning temperature and pressure keep rising on their own. (faa.gov(faa.gov)) That is why overhead bins worry airlines so much. The Federal Aviation Administration says batteries stored there can be obscured, hard to reach, and hard for passengers or crew to monitor, which delays the moment when someone notices smoke or heat. (faa.gov(faa.gov)) Southwest’s own rules already banned portable chargers from checked luggage and capped lithium-ion spare batteries at 20, as long as each one stayed at 100 watt-hours or less. The new move is a much tighter airline-specific limit layered on top of that older baseline. (southwest.com(support.southwest.com)) This did not come out of nowhere in one airline’s conference room. On March 27, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the United Nations body that writes global aviation standards, moved to limit passengers to two power banks and prohibit in-flight recharging. (icao.int(icao.int), usnews.com(usnews.com)) Southwest went further than that new global floor by cutting the number from two to one. The airline told reporters it will lean on booking messages and airport reminders instead of searching bags and confiscating extra chargers at the gate. (nbcnewyork.com(nbcnewyork.com)) The pressure behind these rules has been building for months. The Federal Aviation Administration said 97 lithium battery incidents were reported in 2025, and UL Standards & Engagement said incidents involving portable chargers rose 42% that year. (nbcnewyork.com(nbcnewyork.com)) Airlines have seen the risk play out in real cabins. An Air Busan plane in South Korea caught fire in January 2025 before takeoff, forcing all 176 people aboard to evacuate, and a Spirit Airlines flight later diverted after a battery fire in an overhead bin. (nbcnewyork.com(nbcnewyork.com)) So if you fly Southwest after April 20, the packing math changes in a very specific way: one power bank, carry-on only, no overhead bin, no seat-outlet charging, and keep it where a flight attendant can see it fast if it starts to cook. (nbcnewyork.com(nbcnewyork.com), southwest.com(support.southwest.com))