New US air travel rules for cam. batteries

[Jeremy Doyle]

This is a portion of an email from my boss regarding one of my coworkers.

"Ross and Doug traveled from Minneapolis to McCook, NB last week. The trip down was no problem but on the way home he was hassled big time. The TSA guy told him that they could only have 2 LI batteries (He had Sony BP95s) in his carry on and none in the checked bag so he and Doug each took 2 but that left one, there was one on the camera and he was traveling with 6 as this is what it usually takes to get through an 8 to 10 hour day. There was no way the TSA guy was going to let the "hazardous" material through and they could only have 2 each. He asked if he could call our contact down there to come and get it and the guy said he wasn't going to be responsible for that hazardous material laying around while they waited for the guy to come and get it. Then he asked about just disposing of it and he was told if he threw it in the trash they'd have to call HAZZMAT to take care of it. Finally the guy said there was a hazardous waste bin at the other end of the airport and he could dispose of it there. Now we are out a $650 battery and are running the risk of having this happen every time we travel. Ross had all his batteries individually wrapped in Ziploc bags and in his carry on and according to the TSA "

Like was said before depends on the TSA agent.

[Bill Ward]

Which is why Li-Ion folks need to print out the news release from the Dept of Transportation website (which very clearly says you can have as many under 100-watt hour batteries as you like in your carry on) and take it with them. Also, get a letter on a company letterhead from IDX or AB or whichever battery supplier you use, and have them certify the watt hours or grams of Li-ion in the batteries.

If you get a TSA hardcase, politely ask to speak to the shift supervisor, and show him your paperwork.

[Richard Alvarez]

So a TSA Agent in McCook Nebraska is the first hard case we hear about... while the agents in Minneapolis and SFO for example, have no problems.

Might we infer from this that the smaller the airport, the greater the likelihood of hassle???

[Jeremy Doyle]

I might add that we have all the IDX paperwork printed out. It's Sony that hasn't come out with their documentation yet. We have several calls in to varies people at Sony, but haven't heard boo yet.

[Chris Swanberg]

Two weeks ago, when boarding in Helena Montana the TSA folks somewhat testily had me remove my small Hi8 camcorder (my knockabout) from my backpack, telling me that laptops and videocameras "had to be removed and passed through the scanner separately" and then made me re-reun the backpack and camera in separate bins. That was the first I had heard that. Nothing was said about the Li ion batteries, but I only had 2.

[Boyd Ostroff]

My experience has been that they expect you to place cameras, cellphones and laptops in a bin. Even when they aren't specifically asking I generally do it anyway since it helps keep the line moving and really isn't much of a hardship.

[Chris Swanberg]

Boyd's point is a good one, especially with a little knockabout consumer camera. But, do I want to show off my Z1 to everyone standing around in an airport baggage line? ....No, not if I can help it... so, is it ok to wrap a camera in a black trash bag and place it in a bin alone to be x-rayed without showing off your expensive camera to would be thieves? Any ideas? Experiences?

[Daniel Weber]

I think you would draw the attention of TSA and spend more time explaining yourself than you would want to.

Just put you camera through the x-ray machine right before you walk through yourself. You will get through faster than the camera will. I wouldn't worry about people stealing the camera.

If you act like a professional who knows what they are doing, you will get through the process quickly with out to much delay or fuss.

I do this probably 50 times a year.

Daniel Weber

[Chris Swanberg]

Thanks for the good advice. My fear was probably set off by a story I heard about a guy who boarded with a fairly expensive camera and was accosted by folks in the destination airport, people who clearly targeted him and the bag with the camera - who he figured had been tipped off what he was carrying. I am not worried about losing the camera in the TSA line (grin).

[Josh Chesarek]

I just had a Bescor 12V Lead Acid Camera Light Battery ( http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...e_Battery.html) removed from my luggage after flying to the UK with it in Checked baggage (had all ready filled my carry on with my XH-A1 and its accessories) Newark People decided it was unsafe to fly and they are holding it in the Hazmat area until I return to Newark (which I never will). They could not tell me why it was not allowed. I was trying to read the rules but they all seem to talk about LIONs not Lead Acid. (I don't know the difference) I have no problem flying by the rules but I would have appreciated being given a chance to mail the battery to my self, not being told after boarding that "An electrical device was removed from your baggage and can be picked up when you return." I am waiting for a call back to see if they can ship it to me. For what it is worth when they asked if I had any hazardous material in my bag I did tell them that I had a larger than normal rechargeable 12 Volt set of batteries for a camera light but they did not care when I was checking in.

[Chris Luker]

Went to Brussels and back from Salt Lake through Chicago in december with a Z1 w/3 950 batteries, an Hc3 with a big battery, a macbook pro, a macbook and a pc laptop all with Li batteries, and did not even get questioned once.
My wife gets pulled aside EVERY time for a closer search. She wears a Muslim hamsa necklace (her family is Muslim).
My brother (worked for HS now Secret Service) says it's called "Targeting", not "Profiling"...

[Les Wilson]

I traveled to Singapore and China via LAX with a Bescor NiMH battery in a checked SKB case. While the regulations are clear that NiMH aren't affected, the problem is that the Bescor battery is not marked in any way as to the type of battery it is. If Bescor started marking them in a way that looked OEM, I think some of these problems would be averted. As a hedge, I connected my battery to its AC charger to satisfy the regulation that the extra battery has to be connected to a device. The case was inspected in LA when outbound but as far as I know, was not inspected elsewhere.

[Josh Chesarek]

The battery had its charger wrapped around it, both were taken from my luggage. Still waiting to hear back from Continental. TSA said they only discovered it but it was Continental's call to not allow it on the plane, Continental is holding it in Newark.. : Sigh :

[Max Wilson]

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

In practise, since traditionally many news crews hand carry their camera and you can't check in spare lithium batteries. A set of batteries in their case for the larger cameras would be pretty close to the cabin baggage limits (and many would be too large). So, with current security controls it might come down to a simple choice of deciding if you put the camera in the hold (in a proper case of course). It depends if they regard your Betacam/XDCAM/DVPRO.... kit as a camera or your carry on baggage allowance.

Ah, the joys of travelling with a broadcast camera kit.

The smaller cameras would seem to be able to work around this.

I recently flew from LA to SFO with my new JVC HD110 (small compared to some broadcast cameras) and carried it bare with no bag since i didn't have time to get one before the flight, i then had my backpack with MacBook Pro and a Pelican case with all the camera accessories in the backpack.

I had the IDX charger and two bricks one on the camera and one on the charger in the pelican.
I had no trouble at security at LA, Just took the Laptop out and put them all in different bins. The airlines website said that media cameras where exempt from carry on size rules, so i printed this page just in case.
Once on board the flight was under booked so i had a whole row to myself and strapped the camera to the seat next to me.

On the way back going though SFO security took the pelican out of the backpack and scanned it separate but never opened the case.

So far traveling with the HD110 bare is easier then traveling with the DVX100 in a bag with all the accessories, i normally got the bomb swab scan thing on my camera bag pretty much every time.

[John Huebbe]

I recently flew from St. Louis, MO to Spokane, WA and had no trouble with my batteries. My brother and I travel with 2 porta brace hard cases as carry-ons and had 2 V1U's, 3 HC1's, and 5 TRV33's along with 4 large batteries for the V1U's and 10 large batteries for the HC1's and TRV33's.

The TSA didn't care too much about the camera batteries. They seemed to be more concerned with my rechargable NiMH AA batteries that I had in my backpack.

Going through security seemed to be just the same as years in the past.

As a side note, the TSA agents in Spokane seemed to be the nicest people out of all of the airports I've been to. Maybe because it is a small airport and they are not too busy or rushed.