Sabatair: safe lithium battery transport by air
Sabatair stands for Safe Battery Transport by Air. The project ran from November 2017 until November 2020 and examined how we can make the transport of lithium batteries on cargo flights safer.
Air transport of lithium batteries: not without risks
Lithium batteries are becoming increasingly common in all kinds of applications. That explains why air transport of lithium-metal and lithium-ion batteries has grown so much. Unfortunately, these types of batteries have caused a few fires on flights in the last couple of years. Therefore, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) prohibited the transport of lithium batteries (without any additional safety gear) as cargo on passenger flights.
Because of that situation, Sabatair was set up by orders of the European Committee and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
Measures, packaging solutions and guidelines
The most important goal of Sabatair was to develop specific packaging and other options to securely transport metal-lithium and ion-lithium batteries. We wanted to do that for cargo and passenger flights.
The efficacy of the solutions was evaluated based on a series of studies and experimental tests that represented the realistic conditions of air transport.
Results
One of the most important results of Sabatair was the setup of a security and risk assessment guide for air transport operators. This guide helps them implement the solutions and measures we identified as part of this project securely and effectively.
Funding
The Sabatair project was funded by the European Union as part of the grant agreement n° MOVE/C2/2016-353.
