I have the power

The consumer solution: buy a battery case (which have previously resulted in dangerous battery bulging, smoking and fires), an external battery (adding to the number of batteries on board, a proportion of which are grey-market or not adequately safety-checked) or keep plugging the device in.

Historically, the cabin interiors industry has neither covered itself in glory nor its products with power sockets. Partly that’s due to the certification requirements of the cabin environment – hot wiring plus cushion fabric, foam and plastic are not a great combination – but partly it’s because decision makers don’t have a strong enough handle on what’s coming down the consumer electronics pipe. Singapore Airlines’ brand new Airbus A350, for example, has an iPod connector (yes, iPod) that stopped being supported by Apple when Lightning took over from the old 30-pin connector with the iPhone 5 four years ago.

A majority – or at least a sizeable majority – of USB sockets on commercial aircraft these days are still the 1A sockets that will at best trickle-charge a modern phone. To charge a recent phone or tablet while using it, passengers need a 2A socket at least. These 1A USB outlets were originally intended partly for power and partly to enable passengers to load their own image and video content on an aircraft screen. Clearly, whatever future the airline technologists were looking at was one where legally downloading . avi files was mainstream, but that reality is not our reality. See also: promo pictures of passengers reviewing their holiday snaps direct from the camera on the seatback screen.

But some airlines are turning the tide of feeble (or absent) power outlets. AirAsia’s new seatmaker Mirus, which burst onto the scene in Hamburg at the Aircraft Interiors Expo this year, has managed to squeeze a 2. 1A USB socket into the end of its slimline armrest. Its smart design with colour-changing LEDs to show whether the outlet is ready, drawing full power, drawing minimum power, or faulty, and also offers redundancy: if one of the per-row power boxes dies, its neighbour will trickle-charge six seats instead of full-charging three.

It’s a gamechanger for every airline worldwide: “if AirAsia can do it, why can’t you?”, passengers will ask. Virgin Australia seems to be trailing AirAsia, having announced at the same trade show that it is working with BAE Systems to certify an initial trial of inflight AC sockets and 2A USB power on a single Boeing 737-800, to gauge demand. The pair hope to have the test aircraft working by Q2 2017, but by then high-power USB 3 Type-C devices will be mainstream.

At this point, any airline not already planning how to transition to USB 3 Type-C charging is well behind the curve. Devices are only getting more power-hungry, and the oval Type-C cables have now spread through Apple’s entire laptop product line, as well as numerous manufacturers’ phones. By the time an airline only now planning USB sockets manages to get them rolled out, they’ll be obsolete.

Ensuring that adequate power is available is vital, not least to dissuade passengers from carrying more battery-operated devices on board. Battery anxiety is real, and passengers will carry externals if they feel the need. The iPhone 7 will at least double and in some cases quadruple the number of batteries its owners carry, as many passengers switch to wireless headphones. In the best case scenario, that’s just one additional battery to power the headphones, and airlines need to hope that the passenger didn’t purchase it somewhere dodgy. But in the worst case, it’s three: two for Apple’s new AirPod wireless headphones and one further battery to charge the AirPod case itself.

These tiny batteries are just as flammable as the larger ones contained in phones and tablets, but are perfectly sized for falling out of snoozing ears into the seat mechanism. Numerous aircraft fires have been started when passengers managed to crush their devices in seats, leading to airlines adding a “if you lose your phone, don’t move your seat” message to their safety briefing.

Passengers travelling with their own electronic devices might be a passenger experience plus, but they’re certainly a safety minus.

But some airlines are turning the tide of feeble (or absent) power outlets.