These new rules will limit passengers to no more than two power banks, while also prohibiting recharging power banks onboard and using them to recharge other devices during the flight.

Source: TripIt – Power bank rules airlines are tightening

For most travelers, this may sound like a minor inconvenience.  For photographers and videographers, I’m not so sure.

Take the batteries made by SmallRig, for example. SmallRig makes batteries that replace standard camera and video batteries but can also be charged through USB-C and, in some models, used to charge other devices. Their NP-F970 USB-C battery is rated at 76.3 Wh and SmallRig specifically describes its USB output as allowing the battery to function as a power bank.

So what is it?

A camera battery?

A spare battery?

A power bank?

Or all three?

That’s not just a philosophical question for photographers who travel by air.

The concern for photographers isn’t simply, “Can I bring a battery on a plane?”

It’s this:

How will airlines classify the increasingly common batteries that are both equipment batteries and power banks?

And that matters to people who actually work in the field.

A year or two ago, I led a group of photographers to the Mentawai Islands, where we had essentially no electricity for four days. We had to bring enough batteries to keep our cameras and flashes working through multiple shoots.

That wasn’t excessive.

That was the job.

If you’re teaching lighting in a remote location, no battery means no lesson. No battery means no shoot. No battery means no backup.

I completely understand why airlines are concerned about lithium batteries. Nobody wants a battery fire at 35,000 feet.

But as battery technology evolves, the rules need to evolve with it—and they need to recognize that a photographer’s batteries aren’t necessarily the same thing as a consumer’s power banks.

And this is where I’d like to hear from other photographers:

How are you planning to deal with the new battery restrictions when traveling with camera batteries, flash batteries, LED lights, and video equipment?

Have you encountered an airline that already treats multifunction batteries differently?

I’d especially like to hear from photographers who travel internationally with lighting equipment.

Because for those of us who travel specifically to photograph, batteries aren’t just another piece of electronics in the luggage. They’re part of the photographic toolkit.

And that’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I plan my next photography adventures.

The best photography travel puts you in places where the light, people, culture, and unexpected moments give you photographs you simply couldn’t make at home. That’s why I keep leading photographers into places where the experience itself becomes part of the story.

One of those places will be India in November 2027, when I’ll be taking a small group to the Pushkar Camel Fair as part of my Romance of Rajasthan photography tour.

No shortage of things to photograph there.

We just need to make sure we can get our batteries there. 😉