[longislandguido]

The policies are indeed confusing. FAA rules prohibit power banks and spare (uninstalled) batteries from checked baggage.

It's a bit of a grey area on jurisdiction because FAA cares about flight safety (fires) whilst TSA is primarily looking for terrorists.

United Airlines, however, prohibits laptops and tablets:

* Remove any lithium batteries from electronic devices stored in checked bags.

* If batteries cannot be removed, these devices must be stowed in cabin bags only.

* Store any spare batteries in cabin bags.

[brigade]

And that itself is a recent policy change from just in the last two months; as of January United's official policy [1] matched the FAA's in only requiring checked devices to be powered down

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20260129152627/https://www.unite...