More and more airlines and agencies are prohibiting 15-inch Apple MacBook Pros from being transported in the aircraft’s cargo holds and those in the cabin must be turned off for the duration of the flight. The restriction comes from problems that have been detected in a series of lithium batteries manufactured between September 2015 and February 2017: the battery might go in thermal runaway.
Passengers and owners of this kind of Apple MacBook are advised to check on the manufacturer’s website to see if the laptop type is on the recall list. Passengers, however, will be instructed to keep their laptop switched off and to not recharge the device.
It’s not the first guidance related to portable electronic devices on board aircraft: on 8 September 2016, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an advisory that passengers should not turn on or charge Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 on board aircraft as the battery of the device caused many Note 7 units to overheat and combust or explode.
On 9 September, the European Aviation Safety Agency made a similar statement stating that “passengers are reminded of the need to inform the cabin crew when a device is damaged, hot, produces smoke, is lost, or falls into the seat structure.“
