FAA Bans Recalled Apple Laptops from Flights

But you can keep bringing your 100 Wh powerbanks (coincidentally the same energy as contained in a 2015 15 inch MacBook battery).

Is the onus on the owner of the laptop or TSA? I guess both, but if you end up on a plane and something happens could you be prosecuted?

The FAA is an organization I would not like to get on the wrong side of

They'll just scan the serial number when it passes through the x-ray machine, then use some OCR script to process the image and upload it to https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall /s

In addition to the 432,000 Macbook Pros sold in the US from mid-2015 to 2017 being outright banned from flying, there will be all the other Mackbook Pros sold from about 2013 to mid-2015 that outwardly look just like the banned ones. I suppose all those lookalikes will be pulled out and have their serial numbers checked, which is in microscopic print on the back, which will definitely slow down Pre-check when you would otherwise leave the Macbook in the bag. That's a lot of hardware that has suddenly become much less valuable to travelers. Seems like Apple needs to do more than just replace batteries.

Edit: Can check serial number.

As someone who had one of the bad batteries, where it swelled up to an alarming degree, I see a major difference between a generic power brick with some small possibility of a problem and a battery with a known problem.