I’ve been bringing portable chargers on every overseas trip I’ve taken since 2010. They’ve just been part of the kit, like a travel adapter or a neck pillow you tell yourself you won’t use and then immediately use. So when the rules around power banks on flights started shifting seriously in late 2025, it made me more anxious about international travel than I’ve been in years. Not about turbulence or delayed connections. About whether my phone would survive the flight.

If you’re in the same boat, here’s everything you need to know, including what’s actually changed, what’s still allowed, and how people are getting around the new restrictions on long-haul flights.

Why Power Banks Are Restricted on Flights at All

The short answer is fire. Power banks run on lithium-ion batteries, and lithium-ion batteries can, if they’re damaged, defective, or just badly made, overheat in a process called thermal runaway. It’s not common, but when it happens it’s serious, and it’s particularly serious on a plane.

The key issue isn’t whether a fire can be put out. It’s where the fire is. A battery in the cargo hold can smoulder for a long time before anyone knows about it. In the cabin, the crew can see it and respond immediately. That’s why the FAA has required spare lithium batteries, including power banks, to travel in carry-on luggage rather than checked bags for years now. It’s a practical call, not a bureaucratic one.

What changed in 2025 is that the incidents stopped being theoretical. A power bank caused a fire on a Virgin Australia flight from Sydney to Hobart in July 2025. An Air China service made an emergency landing in Shanghai after a lithium battery caught fire mid-flight. Air Busan banned power banks from overhead storage entirely after a fire on one of their aircraft. And a few months later, a power bank exploded in the Qantas business lounge at Melbourne Airport, sending a passenger to hospital with burns to his fingers and legs.

At some point, the industry had to respond.

The Rules: What You Can Actually Bring

The core rules haven’t changed drastically, but they’re worth knowing clearly because getting it wrong means your power bank gets confiscated at security.

Power banks must go in your carry-on. Not your checked bag. Not your suitcase that you’re planning to gate-check. Your carry-on. This has been the rule for years and the TSA and FAA are consistent on it. Lithium batteries have always been banned from the hold.

On size: anything under 100 watt-hours (Wh) is fine to bring without special approval. That covers the overwhelming majority of power banks people actually travel with. If your power bank is rated in milliampere-hours (mAh) rather than watt-hours, you can work it out yourself: multiply the mAh by 3.7 and divide by 1,000. A 20,000mAh bank works out to about 74Wh. A 27,000mAh bank is right on the edge at around 100Wh. Both are fine.

Between 100Wh and 160Wh, you need airline approval before you travel. Over 160Wh, forget it, you’re not getting it on board. And there’s a two-unit cap for that larger category.

For most people travelling with a standard power bank from JB Hi-Fi or Officeworks, none of this is a problem. The issue is what you can do with it once you’re actually on the plane.

The New Australian Rules: Carry It, Don’t Use It

This is the part that stings. From December 2025, Qantas, Virgin Australia and Jetstar all banned the in-flight use of portable power banks. You can still bring them. You just can’t use them.

Virgin Australia went first on 1 December, Qantas and Jetstar followed on 15 December. The rules are similar but not identical between them. Under Virgin’s policy, power banks have to stay within reach throughout the flight, meaning in your seat pocket or under your seat, not shoved in the overhead locker. You cannot use a power bank to charge your phone. You cannot plug a power bank into your seat’s USB port to top it up. It just has to sit there, fully charged, doing nothing.

Qantas is slightly more relaxed about storage and will let you put it in a nearby overhead locker, but the usage ban is the same. No charging your phone from a power bank during the flight.

Both carriers cap passengers at two power banks and ban anything over 160Wh altogether.

If you’re thinking this sounds absurd, well, it kind of is. The airlines aren’t wrong to be cautious given what’s been happening, but telling people they can bring a device specifically designed to charge phones and then not use it to charge their phone is a difficult sell on a 17-hour flight to London. Australian carriers are far from alone in this, though. Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and Asiana had all moved in the same direction before Qantas and Virgin did. This is where the industry is heading globally.

What About MagSafe Chargers?

If you have an iPhone 12 or later and you’ve been using Apple’s MagSafe battery pack or a third-party Qi2 magnetic bank that snaps onto the back of your phone, the good news is that you can absolutely take it on the plane. MagSafe-compatible power banks are treated identically to any other power bank under current regulations: carry-on only, under 100Wh, and fine to bring.

Apple’s own MagSafe Battery Pack comes in at around 6.4Wh. Third-party options like the Anker MagGo 10K are around 37Wh. Neither is anywhere near the limit.

What you can’t do under the new Qantas and Virgin rules is actually snap it to the back of your phone and use it to charge during the flight. That still counts as using a power bank, which is now banned. So: yes, bring it; no, don’t use it. I know.

How to Actually Keep Your Phone Alive on a Long-Haul Flight

So if your power bank is sitting there useless in the seat pocket, what do you do on a 14-hour flight?

The first thing to check, and do this before you book your seat if you can, is whether your aircraft has in-seat power. Most modern long-haul planes do. Business and first class almost always have AC outlets. Economy is patchier, but a lot of it has USB ports at the very least. The output on in-seat USB-A ports tends to be modest, often around 5W, which is slower than you’re used to at home, but it’ll top your phone up over the course of a long flight.

Not every port works, and on older aircraft you might find nothing at all. SeatGuru is useful here: search your flight, look at the seat map, and it’ll tell you what power options are at your specific seat. On a Qantas A380, every economy seat has a USB port. On some older configurations you might find one shared outlet for a whole row, which works out well for the person sitting next to it and not so well for you.

If your seat has an AC outlet, bring a compact GaN charging brick. A decent 30W GaN charger is about the size of a large die and will charge your phone at home speeds. Bring your own USB-C cable obviously, because no one is going to give you one.

Charge everything fully before you board, and I mean before you leave the house, not while you’re rushing through the terminal. Most airport lounges have charging points but they fill up fast and finding a free one near a seat you actually want to sit in is a minor victory. If you do have lounge access, plug in as soon as you sit down rather than after your second coffee.

Download everything you want to watch offline before the flight. This sounds like advice from 2016 but you’d be surprised how many people don’t do it and then end up streaming on in-flight Wi-Fi, which is expensive, unreliable, and absolutely destroys your battery. Grab your Netflix and Disney+ episodes at home on the Wi-Fi, put the phone in aeroplane mode when you board, and it’ll last significantly longer than if it’s constantly trying to find a signal at altitude.

Drop your screen brightness manually too. Most phones have auto-brightness that cranks the screen up in a bright cabin environment. On a 14-hour flight, pulling it back to 40 or 50% makes a real difference to how long the battery lasts.

The travel hack that’s been doing the rounds since the new restrictions kicked in is this: use your laptop as a charger. Laptops have large batteries and are not covered by the same in-flight restrictions as power banks. Plugging your phone into your laptop via USB-C is technically different from using a standalone power bank and remains permitted. It’s not elegant, but if you’re travelling with a laptop anyway it’s a genuinely useful workaround while the industry figures out something better.

Charging at the Airport

One thing worth flagging if you’re planning to top up at airport charging stations: public USB ports in airports are a mild security risk. The attack is called “juice jacking,” where a compromised USB port loads malware onto your device while it charges. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s a known enough issue that the FBI has put out warnings about it. The easy fix is to bring your own cable and only plug into AC power points rather than public USB ports. Most international airports have them in terminal seating areas if you look around.

The problem is they fill up fast, the good ones near comfortable seating especially. Getting to your gate early enough to claim one isn’t always possible when you’re managing a connection. Your best overall strategy is the chain: fully charged at home, plug in where you can in the terminal, use the in-seat power on the flight. That combination gets most phones through even the longest routes without needing to touch a power bank.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I bring a power bank in my checked luggage?

No, and this isn’t a new rule. Power banks and spare lithium batteries have been banned from checked luggage for years. They must go in your carry-on. If security finds one in a checked bag, it gets confiscated.

What size power bank can I take on a plane?

Under 100Wh is fine without any special approval, which covers most power banks you’ll find at a retail store in Australia. Between 100Wh and 160Wh you need airline approval and you’re limited to two units. Anything over 160Wh is not allowed.

Can I use a power bank on a Qantas flight?

No, not since 15 December 2025. You can carry up to two power banks in your cabin bag, but you cannot use them to charge devices during the flight.

Can I use a power bank on a Virgin Australia flight?

Same situation from 1 December 2025. Power banks must stay within reach during the flight, not in the overhead locker, and cannot be used to charge anything while you’re in the air.

Are MagSafe chargers allowed on planes?

Yes. MagSafe battery packs and Qi2 magnetic power banks are fine to bring in your carry-on. The catch is that you cannot use one to charge your iPhone during flights on Qantas or Virgin Australia under the current restrictions.

Can I charge my phone from my laptop on a plane?

Yes. Plugging your phone into your laptop via USB-C is not treated the same as using a standalone power bank and isn’t covered by the new restrictions. It’s a bit awkward but it works, and if you’re already travelling with a laptop it’s a reasonable backup.

How do I convert mAh to watt-hours to check if my power bank is allowed?

Multiply the mAh by 3.7 and divide by 1,000. A 20,000mAh bank is roughly 74Wh, well under the limit. A 27,000mAh bank is around 100Wh, right on the edge but still within the standard allowance.