Wet Cell Lead/Acid Battery Allowed In Luggage?

I want to bring a small, rechargable AC power supply which includes a lead/acid battery in my luggage to the DR. Does anyone know if this type of item is allowed in checked baggage?

Thanks for any reply.
Gregory Wales

Jet Blue Had An Answer

GRS said:

Check with the airline as wet cell applies as dangerous good. I think they allowed wet cell only for wheelchairs. But call your airline, they will provide with more information.

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I called Jet Blue today and the representative read the list of items not allowed in checked baggage. The list specifically refers to spillable lead/acid batteries as being forbidden. This implies that there are lead/acid batteries that are allowed as would be the case with the large re-chargable flashlights with lead/acid batteries and, I hope, the little battey powered AC inverter I plan to take next month. I'll let you know if it makes it through or not.

Gregory Wales

Lead Acid Batteries and Glass Bottles in Carry-ons

About the sealed lead/acid battery question: I opened the unit up revealing the printed words on battery indicating the battery was sealed and not spillable. There was never an issue about the battery or the inverter going through security.

BUT --

Explain this one to me: We brought a number of large bottles of rum home with us this time. Thinking that the biggest problem we might have would be the accidental breakage of the bottles we nestled the bottles in a chest amongst numerous bags of coffee beans. We had reciepts for the rum, the coffee beans and also some cigars with the intent of declaring them and paying taxes on them.

The security in STI told us we were limited to one bottle per peice of baggage so they proceeded to repack our luggage with the result that three large glass bottles of rum (the ones with the big handles a man can fit four fingers in) were put in our carry-on luggage and we carried them onto the plane - through the x-ray equipment and onto the plane! Later when we went through security at JFK a small scissors in the carry-on was an obvious blunder on our part, but, three big heavy bottles were no problem.

Also at JKF we were suprised at the priority customs placed on the coffee beans. Gallons of rum and over a thousand cigars were ignored. No questions asked and no tax charged. But the little bags of coffee beans were all taken out of the room and examined privately, x-rayed for drugs we imagined.

Another interesting tidbit about our trip concerned the Avis Rent-A-Car in STI. We had a confirmation for an economy car to be available at 7:00 AM for a base price of $672.00, 7% airport fee of $67.20 and total tax of $107.52 which equaled $846.72 total for 27 days. The Avis guy didn't show until an hour later after we had showed a copy of our internet agreement with Avis to a competitor who called the Avis guy in. The Avis guy apologized for not being on time and not having the car we were suposed to have waiting for us. His only option was to give us the dirty car he drove to the airport and charge us around $1,200 for it. Having waited since the Jet Blue arrival 6-plus hours earlier and armed with a confirmation number and information totally contrary to the terms dictated at this inopportune situation we opted to sign the agreement and planned to protest later. We'll let you know how Avis treats on a future post.

Gregory Wales