If you were lucky enough to get a hoverboard in your Christmas stocking this holiday season, you may have some trouble getting it home.
More than 60 airlines have banned hoverboards from being taken on their flights—either as carry-on items or in checked luggage—because of concerns about the scooters' lithium-ion batteries, which are potentially combustable.
Lithium-ion batteries power everything from laptops to smartphones to Teslas. But the large size of a hoverboard's battery—and the fact that some knockoff hoverboards are made cheaply and without proper safeguards—makes it particularly vulnerable to overheating. Several news stories have reported incidents in which hoverboards caught fire or exploded, injuring their riders or damaging nearby property. Understandably, airlines aren't willing to take the risk of an onboard explosion.
Airlines' hoverboard bans aren't sitting well with passengers, including actor Russell Crowe, who had hoped to take their self-balancing scooters with them on board.
Here are the airlines that have banned hoverboards in all passenger luggage, according to IATA:
Aer Lingus
Air Astana
Air Berlin
Air Canada
Air France
Air New Zealand
Air Seychelles
Air Tahiti
Air Transat
Alaska Airlines
Alitalia
All Nippon
American Airlines
Asiana
Austrian Airlines
Avianca
Bangkok Airways
British Airways
Brussels Airlines
Cathay Pacific
China Airlines
Delta Airlines
Dragonair
Easyjet
Emirates
Etihad
Fiji Airways
Finnair
FlyBE
Garuda
Hong Kong Airlines
Japan Airlines
Jet Airways
Jetstar
KLM – Royal Dutch Airlines
Korean Airlines
LAN Airlines
Lufthansa
Malaysia Airlines
Monarch
Philippine Airlines
Qantas
Qatar Airways
SAS
Saudi Arabian Airlines
Singapore Airlines
South African Airlines
Sri Lankan Airlines
Swiss International
TAM Airlines
Thai Airways
Thomas Cook
Thomson Airways
United Airlines
Virgin Australia
Several airlines, including Southwest, appear to allow hoverboards in certain circumstances, although policies have been changing rapidly. (If you've got an upcoming flight, you should probably check with your airline directly.)
For their part, hoverboard makers have maintained that the scooters are safe, even as local news broadcasts have been headlined by stories of hoverboards that have caught on fire and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has recorded at least 70 complaints of hoverboard-related emergency room visits.
"I wouldn't feel safe having my kids on a plane without knowing the devices were safe either," John Soibatian, president of IO Hawk, a major hoverboard manufacturer, told CNN.
The CPSC is currently investigating the root cause of all of the hoverboard fires. In the meantime, it has issued tips for hoverboard fans, including only purchasing scooters that are certified by a national testing laboratory.