How to Fly With Your Onewheel

Onewheel GT

Technically the battery is too big on the Onewheel GT to fly. So no, the GT can’t legally fly.

Onewheel Pint X

The battery on the Pint X is also too big, so this one is a no go.

Onewheel Pint

The battery on the Pint is actually just on the line and you can technically fly with it!

Onewheel XR

With a battery the same size as the Onewheel Pint X, this one is a no fly.

Disclaimer

While many have successfully flown with their Onewheels with lots of different methods, your results may vary.

You can (and should) do your due diligence, but at the end of the day some of the factors are just luck.

Happy travels and good luck!

Methods

There are 3 different methods the community has found that seem to work:

• Carry the Onewheel on with you
• Check the Onewheel in with your luggage
• Separate the battery from the board, bring the battery with you and check the rest of the Onewheel

Method 1 Onewheel Carry On

This is the method I’ve used before and it worked fine for me.

Basically the logic is that while airlines prohibit lithium Ion batteries, the Onewheel uses a Lithium Iron-Phosphate battery, which according to the TSA, is allowed to fly with some restrictions.

The special instructions provided by the TSA state:

“Spare (uninstalled) lithium ion and lithium metal batteries, including power banks and cell phone battery charging cases, must be carried in carry-on baggage only.

With airline approval, passengers may also carry up to two spare larger lithium ion batteries (101–160 Wh) or lithium metal batteries (2-8 grams). This size covers the larger after-market extended-life laptop computer batteries and some larger batteries used in professional audio/visual equipment. There is a limit of two spare batteries per person for the larger lithium ion batteries described above (101–160 watt hours per battery. For more information, see the FAA regulations on batteries.

This instruction covers spare lithium metal and spare rechargeable lithium ion batteries for personal electronics such as cameras, cell phones, laptop computers, tablets, watches, calculators, etc. This instruction also includes external battery chargers (portable rechargers and power banks) containing a lithium ion battery. For lithium batteries that are installed in a device (laptop, cell phone, camera, etc.), see FAA regulations for “portable electronic devices, containing batteries.”

Best of luck here, it worked for me!

Method 2 Check the Onewheel in your luggage

This method is simple as it sounds, put the board in your luggage and check it.

The other side of this is that there are several stories of boards being stolen when flying longer distances or people getting calls while sitting on the plane, so this one seems a little more risky.

Personally I’m not sure how they would know what’s in the luggage without really digging into it, but that’s the risk you run.

My personal advice is if you’re flying inside the continental 48 states you’re less likely to have problems with this method, but when flying to Hawaii, Alaska or internationally you certainly run the risk of someone checking out your baggage.

Happy travels, and good luck with this one.

Method 3 Check the Onewheel in your luggage but remove the battery and carry that with you

This one makes a lot of sense to me because you can pull up the TSA and airline guidelines on your phone if you get called out and show the battery and that it’s safe to fly.

In my experience, just having the board in your luggage won’t cause any big problems, the battery is the real kicker.

The biggest problem here is you have to void the warranty to remove the battery, so if you want to avoid that, I totally understand.

The Onewheel wiki has a simple guide with pictures of how to remove the battery and you can find that here.

Or if you like videos better, here’s a video that shows how to separate the battery from the Onewheel for reference:

According to Onewheel Wiki this method is the only 100% success method, so do with that info what you will.

Tips and tricks

Here are a couple of tips that might help your journey

When I flew with mine the TSA guy was cool, which certainly helps, but I was also nice and confident.

I pulled up the website and the info and showed him and kind of shrugged and said “according to the airline this is totally fine” and he said “alright if they say its ok, then you’re good.”

So then I just put it back in my duffel bag and walked onto the plane and didn’t say anything else. It worked there and back, but I was nervous the whole time.

This seems obvious, but hoverboards have a really bad reputation of you know, catching on fire.

So don’t call it a hoverboard, I just call it a skateboard or a computer, or even a camera dolly.

All of those will get better reception than a hoverboard.

I’ve seen people recommend a Onewheel specific bag, something like this: