Lithium ions are rechargeable batteries; lithium primaries are non rechargeable, high performance batteries.
Apple air tags use lithium primaries, but I suspect airlines do not care and both kinds are banned (from loaded-in-device-in-baggage flight).
FAA specifically allows non-rechargeable small Lithium cells if in equipment in checked baggage. However, the table on the second pages says that small battery/cell spares are not allowed in checked baggage. “Lithium metal batteries (a.k.a.: non-rechargeable lithium, primary lithium). These batteries are often used with cameras and other small personal electronics. Consumer-sized batteries (up to 2 grams of lithium per battery) may be carried. This includes all the typical non-rechargeable lithium batteries used in cameras (AA, AAA, 123, CR123A, CR1, CR2, CRV3, CR22, 2CR5, etc.) as well as the flat round lithium button cells.” — https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/resources/media/Airline_...
Note that lithium itself is a very volatile metal (it starts burning in contact with water, for example).
Read the initial article that started all this, it even says that reason is because of transmissions.
Lufthansa: Bluetooth headphones are allowed during every part of the flight.
Like no chewing tobacco... Yeah it is gross but it is probably not a safety issue.
This is one of many absolutely ridiculous things the airline industry has enforced.
But.. I must fly places, so I just suffer like the rest.
There’s no way they had all the YouTube cached on the olane
2) Lufthansa "allows it during the entire flight without restriction – even during take-off and landing unless the crew instruct otherwise"(https://bluetoothtechworld.com/can-i-use-bluetooth-headphone...). In other words, unless you're told to turn it off in the event of some problem, which is something you can't do when it's in the luggage hold of the aircraft.
Again, the articles specifies this is about EMC.
Imagine planes falling down because a single passenger had a malfunctioning phone on it... the lawsuits against boeing/airbus would be astronomical.
Also, I'm pretty confident that Lufthansa's Airbus and Boeing planes are the same as everybody else's Airbus and Boeing planes. If there was an EMC issue that they were running into from Airtags, it would have been jumped on by the national aviation administrations so fast your head would spin. It would be major international news. It would not be an obscure rule with misleading and contradictory guidance coming from a single airline.
One is probably fine but a hold full of them and people's iPhones emitting on UWB also?
By contrast Bluetooth, WiFi etc use the ISM radio bands, which can simply be avoided by any transmission the plane itself needs to do.
Would just add that it's more what the aircraft needs to reliably receive (not transmit) that is susceptible to local sources of spurious RF.
It seems to me like a denylist would be more useful than an Allowlist at this point.
Almost no consumer electronics are dangerous to a plane
I think that's a little outdated.
I flew a few times a few months ago, and the passengers were repeatedly encouraged to hook up to the plane's wifi as soon as we boarded. No announcements were made about turning devices off. Not even during take-off or landing. I'm one of those people who pays attention to the announcements and reads the safety cards every time, so I was surprised.
I think the airlines think it's safer to have excitable people turned into gadget zombies during the flight to make the time pass faster and keep them from getting rowdy. The same function that the in-flight movie, drink, and meal used to serve before those were all value engineered away.
I think this is to make sure that you have it setup early so any tech support can be handled early and to make sure you can download the airline app to your phone if needed. The aircrew can enable/disable the wifi at will. Next time look to see if it is working at takeoff. I’m honestly not sure if it will be or not, but it used to be a switch in the cabin.
Yes, but that does nothing when it comes to risk of radio emissions. Turning off the AP doesn't magically prevent client devices from doing whatever they want anyway. If there was a genuine risk of a client device interfering with the plane's equipment, turning off an AP wouldn't do anything about it, nor will asking the passengers to turn it off (some might not comply, forget or not even realize that their device has a Wi-Fi radio in it). You need either extreme control over every electronic device brought onboard (including X-ray scans, since implantable medical devices now have RF communication too), or enough shielding around the sensitive equipment to make RF no longer a risk - the latter has already been done for decades and RF is no longer (and I don't recall ever being actually) a threat to airplanes.
Considering the number of people glued to their screens during takeoff, if it suddenly stopped working, I think the cabin-wide moaning and groaning would have been obvious.
I give up.
> Devices containing lithium metal batteries or lithium ion batteries, including – but not limited to – smartphones, tablets, cameras and laptops, should be kept in carry-on baggage. If these devices are packed in checked baggage, they should be turned completely off, protected from accidental activation and packed so they are protected from damage. [emphasis mine]
That's it - no one is enforcing this regulation in practice, especially not for AirTags or other small devices.
AirTags send these out once per second when the owner is near, otherwise once every 2 seconds.
Assume 500 passengers on a 747, and everyone has an AirTag, and let's assume worstcase, the tags are in-range:
500 pax * 270 = 135kbyte, or 1MBit/second of radio traffic. The equivalent of 4 bluetooth headphones.
This isn't about RF. This is about luggage claims. In the EU, consumers are heavily protected against delays, canceled flights, and lost luggage.
AirTags have non lithium batteries
Both - when installed in a device - can be transported in checked luggage though: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/05e6d8742b0047259bf3a700b...
IATA actually has a document specifically addressing tracking devices: https://www.iata.org/contentassets/05e6d8742b0047259bf3a700b...
My reading of that document indicates that an AirTag should be fine, as low-powered wireless communication is allowed (page 9, item 3).
They are lithium primary cells though, not lithium ion cells, which are usually what is banned.
>[T]he CR2032 battery is a Lithium-manganese dioxide battery (LiMn02). It is composed of a Mn02 cathode and a lithium anode. The device is specified for a 225 milliamp hours (mAh) and typically operates over a temperature range of –20 ºC to +70 ºC.
You will find some alkaline versions available from some vendors, but it's not the norm.
Now there may be a chance that Lufthansa didn't mean to include all types of lithium cells or batteries, but the vague wording doesn't seem to suggest that.