Gear / Power banks and flight rules
Power banks and flight rules
Can you bring a power bank to Greece?
Yes, in the cabin only: lithium batteries are barred from checked baggage. Ours, a 99.5Wh bank, flew in the carry-on on both July 2026 flights, just under the common 100Wh line above which an airline’s approval is needed.
Lithium power banks travel in the cabin and never in checked bags on passenger aircraft, and the number that decides whether a given bank can fly at all is watt-hours, printed on the casing. At or under 100 watt-hours a bank needs no airline approval; between 100 and 160 it needs the airline's approval, with a limit on how many; above that it does not fly. Those are the dangerous-goods rules airlines published as of 2026, and a carrier can be stricter.
Ours was a 250-watt bank rated at 99.5 watt-hours — just under the line, which is where many large banks sit by design. It flew in the carry-on on both nonstop flights between the US and Athens in July 2026, with the rest of the electronics, and nothing with a battery went in the hold.
On those flights we charged from the seat outlet, which took a US plug, so our charger went in with no adapter at either end of the journey. We did not log what it charged or how fast.
If a bank's label gives only milliamp-hours, the conversion is watt-hours equals amp-hours times the cell voltage — not the five volts of its USB output, which would overstate it by about a third. That is arithmetic rather than advice, and our bank printed its watt-hours, so we never needed it.
Common questions
No. Lithium batteries must travel in the cabin.
Commonly 100Wh without approval, which is why banks cluster just under it.
We charged from the seat outlet on our July 2026 nonstop flights, which took a US plug with no adapter. We did not log what it charged or how fast.