Bad news - USPS not allowing lithium battery shipments from May 7

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U.S. Postal Service

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  huntress_love on 03/05/2012 - 17:41

  that's crap, i was waiting to get a new powertool with lithim battery in them.
  i hope amazon use the other US postal service.

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  evol on 03/05/2012 - 17:44

  Understandable, given that there's been a spate of lithium battery fires on cargo planes in recent years, with the worst one being the complete loss of a UPS B747 freighter near Dubai :(

  It should be noted that USPS will still ship lithium battery products within domestic USA via air/ground, so you could still use a forwarding service like Shipito, just that you'd have to choose a courier like DHL or FedEx to get it from USA to AU.

  AusPost has the same ban on lithium batteries but it's mostly ignored from what I can tell.

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  endotherm on 03/05/2012 - 19:22

  If you read on you will find this:

  "The Postal Service anticipates that by January 1, 2013, aviation rules will be changed to allow specific quantities of lithium batteries (installed in the equipment they are intended to operate) to be sent by mail to destinations abroad."

  It seems this is due to a recent change in the aviation rules in the US, but how rigidly it will be enforced (or is currently) is debatable. It seems this ban would only be for about 6 months if enforced properly.

  I can understand them wanting to ban them, lithium battery fires are ferocious. At least over the US, an airport for emergency landing shouldn't be too far away. I'd hate to think what would happen in a cargo hold fire over the middle of the Pacific Ocean…

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  whitty on 27/05/2012 - 09:18

  I noticed when checking in to a domestic flight with QANTAS on a self check-in terminal that it asked about lithium batteries in carry on luggage. I ended up having to check in at the desk anyway and they said nothing to me, neither did the staff at the security gates when we went through so I'm not sure they bother about it here. With the amount of lithium batteries in gadgets it seems unlikely that's what they were referring to but who knows.