The government is reviewing an amendment to the Aviation Safety Act to allow imposing fines on passengers who cause problems, such as prompting a return to the airport by placing phone power banks in checked baggage, according to reports on the 12th. The current law has no punishment provisions for individual passengers and imposes fines only on airlines.
Under Article 70 of the Aviation Safety Act, power banks containing lithium batteries must not be placed in checked baggage due to the risk of explosion. The law also requires airlines to inform passengers of the ban on bringing in batteries. If it is confirmed that a passenger violated this law by bringing a power bank into the cabin and the airline failed to properly fulfill its duty to notify, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) can impose a penalty surcharge on the airline. The maximum penalty surcharge that can be imposed is 10 million won for international flights and 6 million won for domestic flights.
Airlines typically return to the airport if they confirm during a passenger flight that a passenger placed a battery in checked baggage. However, there are no punishment provisions for the passenger who caused the return. As a result, cases of batteries being placed in checked baggage and later discovered have continued to surface. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), in the past three years there have been 10 cases at Korean-flag airlines in which aircraft returned to the gate while taxiing or turned back in flight due to battery issues in passengers' checked baggage.
A government official said, "If a hazardous battery is found in baggage, the airline must return to the airport no matter what, which ends up harming other passengers as well," adding, "We will push to amend the law to improve the effectiveness of the ban on bringing batteries into the cabin."