It’s giveaway season and with air travel to New Zealand set to increase by 400% once the Auckland border opens on December 15, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is reminding people of what’s allowed and what planes are prohibited.

While some items may seem fairly obvious, sometimes passengers can forget whether to check them or put them in a carry-on baggage.

The CAA says the “number one” offender picked up at checkpoints is also the easiest to forget: the batteries.

All batteries must be packed in hand baggage and not in checked baggage. Each passenger has a limit of 20 batteries and any other spare batteries must be individually protected either in retail packaging, protective sleeve, in an individual bag or with tape over the exposed terminals.

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Electronic items such as phones, tablets, air capsules or power banks are also allowed only in carry-on baggage. The reason they are not allowed in checked baggage is that most of them have lithium batteries which are classified as “dangerous goods”. It hasn’t happened very often, but there have been cases of lithium batteries exploding in bunkers.

If you are purchasing tools or power tools for your friends and relatives, these must be in your checked baggage. While some of these tools can be carried in hand luggage, the CAA says there are rules regarding the length of metal shanks on screwdrivers, chisels, and drills. These items are limited as they could be used as weapons on a flight. So check them out to be sure rather than sorry.

How about that Nerf gun you bring to your younger (or older) cousin? Well, anything that looks like a gun or weapon, including toy lightsabers for the future Luke Skywalker in your life, should be placed in checked baggage. Plus all those “gadget gun gifts” that look like real, check them out. You don’t want your pomegranate-shaped aftershave to pose a large-scale safety concern when scouting.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but if your gift makes a “banging” noise, it shouldn’t come on board at all. Poppers, fireworks, or anything that contains explosives, even if it is just throwing glitter or confetti, is not allowed on an aircraft.

CAA has a host of Dos and Don’ts of what you can bring on board on their website and while it might not sound like a Christmas Grinch, Karen Unwin, aviation security operations manager, says it’s important for passengers to know what they’re allowed to take on board to avoid any festive flare-ups.

“Tools, air capsules, external batteries, batteries are often quite expensive items and the passenger often does not want to give them up. However, if people take the time to check the rules on our website, they will see that most of the items can be taken away. the plane, it’s just a matter of whether it can fit in your checked baggage or hand baggage, ”Unwin said.

“This season my advice to passengers would be to check what can and cannot board a plane, to arrive at the airport with extra time to go through security as there could be lines. waiting with a lot of flights again, and making the check easy for yourself by not wearing heavy boots or coats.

As for one of the most common frustrations during security checks, Unwin reminds travelers to take their keys or coins out of their pockets: “We have to recheck a lot of passengers who forget.”