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Carry Your Instrument On The Plane – It's The Law
- kumarski 13y agoI love this. I wish I had known. I play indian tablas, the darbuka, djembe, and bongos. I consistently take longer in the security line and absolutely hate gate checking my instruments. I usually leave to the airport 2 hours beore my Caucasian posse of travelers. Thank you for posting.
- yodsanklai 13y agoThanks, that's interesting to know. But does it mean you can have an instrument AND a carry-on bag? I flew numerous time with a guitar without any problem. Only once they bothered me. I had a laptop and an electric guitar in a gig bag. They didn't allow me to take both items with me. I had to put the laptop and the guitar in the same bag.
- AccordionGuy 13y agoI've never had a problem with carry both an accordion and a knapsack containing my laptops. The accordion I travel with fits handily in just about every aircraft's overhead compartment, which certain simplifies those rare moments when the flight crew gives me static about not checking or gate-checking it. I agree with the author that getting on the plane early is important. Another good trick is to try and get seats near the rear of the plane, as many (but not all) airlines try to board the plane from the rear seats first. This gives you a better shot at getting space in one of the overhead compartments.
- joeconway 13y agoAs a guitarist moving to NY in the new year, I've spent the last week obsessing over if I can bring precious instrument with me. Now I need to find out if this legislation applies to an american airline flying into american airspace from the UK (fingers crossed)
- sborsje 13y agoWhen flying with Iceland Air a couple of months ago (AMS -> NYC), I was surprised how incredibly smooth the whole check-in experience was. I thought I would get into trouble, because I was carrying both a backpack and a guitar (MONO Vertigo softcase), but literally nobody asked me about it.
- jacques_chester 13y agoIn the US, most airlines charge for checked-in luggage in economy class. So passengers have reacted by taking carry-on luggage instead, leading to the long tedious loading times. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, you typically get one bag checked in as part of your ticket. So there's no economic incentive to try and shove half your possessions into a small overhead compartment. Then it gets sillier when they gate-check the luggage anyhow. To deal with the problems caused by not checking luggage "for free", they are ... checking a random selection of luggage at the gate. In a less efficient manner. In a way that slows boarding. The most amazing part is that this situation has now totally inverted the order of boarding. It used to be that boarding last or near-last was a privilege. Who the hell wants to sit in a cramped plane for even longer? Now it's a curse. Small changes can have surprising consequences.
- julian_t 13y agoFor several years now, UK regulations have allowed you to take an instrument on board as well as a carry-on. I've had to insist on it a couple of times with check-in staff. But as a colleague told me years ago: never travel with anything you aren't prepared to lose, because You Never Know. When I take a guitar with me on the road, I take one of these: http://www.brunner-guitars.com/?page_id=591 http://www.brunner-guitars.com/?page_id=591 Not the cheapest, but it'll fit in the overhead every time.
- 001sky 13y agoTechnically the airlines must comply "Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this section." So February 14th, 2014 Lets hope they don't change it (before it takes effect !)
- inafield 13y agoI was on a domestic Delta flight recently and someone brought a trombone case and 1 personal item without issue.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mseebach 13y agoAnd as with all other special exceptions written into the law by lobbyists, the tab is generously picked up by the rest of us. You're welcome.
- jat850 13y agoI'm trying to read through the cynicism and understand two parts of your post: 1. What lobbyists would have written this and most importantly, why? When I think of lobbyists I think of someone having something financial to gain. I'm not aware of a huge flying-musician lobby. 2. What tab? What penalty are we the unfortunate paying because of this?
- DougBTX 13y ago1. According to the article, the American Federation of Musicians 2. Agreed, what tab? If the airlines can charge a fee comparable to equivalent carry on luggage, what difference does this actually make? I guess it must be against an extra surcharge for instruments, which honestly I wouldn't have thought would exist in the first place.
- mseebach 13y ago1: The musicians lobby. It's in the article. 2: Cabin space is a scarce resource. When some of it is forcefully allocated to a privileged group, there is less for the rest of us.
- fastball 13y ago
- 4ngle 13y agoThe wiggling email fields are the most obnoxious things I've seen in recent history.
- ten7 13y agoThank god that someone else feels the same. It's absolutely the worst thing I have seen in modern history.
- gboudrias 13y agoEven if I had wanted to subscribe before, the wiggling put a stop to it.
- nikatwork 13y agoIt's like a <blink> tag became sentient.
- brokentone 13y agoI don't want to be "that guy," but I had to stop reading in the middle.
- ariherstand 13y agoi hear you! working on changing it as we speak. :)
- ariherstand 13y agoi hear you - working on changing it as we speak! :)
- pmiller2 13y agoIf you think this is good news for guitar players, it's even better news for cello players. A $3000 guitar is a fairly expensive guitar; a $3000 cello is typically a beginner/intermediate student instrument. And then you have to add a significant amount for the bow.
- bunderbunder 13y agoShow me a cello successfully stowed in the overhead bin or under a seat, and I'll be a very impressed person.
- paxswill 13y agoThe law allows musicians to buy an extra ticket for their instrument, so they can put it in a seat.
- pmiller2 13y agoThis one might fit: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/orchestral-strings/ns-design-nxt-4-string-electric-cello http://www.musiciansfriend.com/orchestral-strings/ns-design-...
- wazoox 13y agoAn airline (Royal Air Maroc) once destroyed a flight case containing a synth of mine (fortunately the synth survived, though a custom flight case isn't exactly cheap). That's why musicians are so afraid of gate checking their precious instruments.
- enneff 13y agoI would never check my synthesizer. I'd rather not fly.
- kubiiii 13y agoSynth lover here, what was the model?
- wazoox 13y agoActually was my master keyboard, a Yamaha PF-P100. It happened in 1995 back when I was a professional musician :)
- kubiiii 13y agoOh no a boring master keyboard :') Well those prove useful sometimes. They are the honda civic of keyboards.
- wazoox 13y agoActually doubles as a digital piano :) It's really an excellent workhorse, I'm still using it though it's getting really old after 20 years (some keys stick down now; some have been broken and glued back in 1995). For years I've been looking for a replacement but couldn't find one worth it (real pitch/mod wheels; 2 addressable inputs; hard piano touch; integrated amplifier for quick gigs; excellent piano sound; decent Rhodes sound; actually useful equalizer; absolutely indestructible). OTOH if you like interesting synths I have a wonderful 1976 ARP Pro DGX, and I love it but it's far less versatile than the PF :)
- md224 13y ago> Technically the airlines must comply "Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this section." So February 14th, 2014, BUT you don't need to mention that part when arguing with the gate attendant. It is the law and they should comply with it. This feels like a breach of information ethics. You're presenting information to another party without a key detail that could potentially undermine your case, simply because you feel you have the moral high ground and the detail shouldn't be there in the first place. The author believes "it is the law and they should comply with it," except for a certain element of the fine print which the author thinks is too lenient. It makes me a bit uncomfortable whenever someone openly justifies using omission as a tactic.
- coldtea 13y ago>This feels like a breach of information ethics. Oh, please...
- Groxx 13y ago"Oh, please..." it's just ethics. Might as well print out other laws they don't have to comply with, to convince them to let you carry on your X.
- backlava 13y agoWhy limit yourself to printing out real laws?
- electromagnetic 13y agoThat's it, I'm printing out a Neighbourly Code of Conduct Law... I'm so gatecrashing my neighbours house, her cooking always smells delicious.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- md224 13y agoI apologize for my high-minded tone, sometimes I find myself falling into that style of prose. I still stand by my objection to the ethics of such an act.
- mmaunder 13y agoNice, thanks for posting. I've been traveling between USA and South Africa with a Les Paul for a couple years now and always thought I was being sneaky avoiding the extra bag fee by taking my guitar to the gate and then either keeping it or being told to gate check it but without the fee. Didn't realize you get to do that by law.
- contingencies 13y agoI've done a lot of travel with bulky items (mostly bicycles) in the past, and seen a range of issues. My first musical instrument experience was earlier this week when my wife and I checked in our sitar[1] for a flight from Bangkok to Sydney. The carrier, Qantas, wasn't able to tell us if we'd have a problem before arriving but we were pleasantly surprised that the airport checkin staff sorted it for free. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sitar
- lignuist 13y agoI guess airlines fear orchestras.
- gtani 13y agoPretty good blog, i like the other posts on CDbaby vs reverbNation et al and getting your stuff stolen, which has happened to almost every pro musician friend of mine except for pianists. Unfortunately, a guitar in a gig bag is probably not going to survive long on commercial flights, the way people jam stuff into every last mm-cubed of the overhead bins. So flight case, or at the very least a softshell case like a Roadrunner (basically, zippered nylon fabric over lots of stryofoam)
- wyclif 13y agoI've traveled internationally with expensive guitars before this new law was in place. Of course, the law in question doesn't cover travel outside the US. Here's what I do, wherever I may roam: 1. Have the instrument in a good gig bag with lots of padding, not a hardshell case. 2. Approach boarding with the gig bag hanging from the shoulder furthest away from the attendant checking your boarding pass. Try to arrange things so that you can board early. 3. This one is important: always, always be pleasant and super polite to staff. You do not want to get aggressive or demanding. 4. If asked to gate-check the guitar, don't sweat it. Let them issue you the tag. While you're walking down the jet bridge, "accidentally" drop the tag on the floor nonchalantly. Once you board the plane, if they hassle you about stowing it in overhead, ask politely if you can stow the guitar in the crew closet or in the back of the plane. 5. As a safeguard, take an all-purpose screwdriver and pack it in the gig bag. If you have a sturdy electric (like, say, a Fender Telecaster), you can easily unscrew the neck to allow you to store it in a smaller space. Obviously, I don't like doing this but it may be necessary in a jam.
- salmonellaeater 13y ago> As a safeguard, take an all-purpose screwdriver and pack it in the gig bag. After having security confiscate my small hex wrench set (part of my bike kit) and, on a different occasion, a tiny screwdriver (part of my camera's filter kit), I would recommend getting a CHEAP screwdriver.
- dreamfactory 13y agoI once travelled from the US with a guitar a few years back. I was told at check-in that instruments travelled free and had to be taken onboard. Was even ushered to the front of the boarding queue when I got there so I would be able to stow. Assumed I'd discovered an airline hack and had been considering a guitar case as a sneaky second suitcase in future.
- tks2103 13y agoHoly crap I did not even fathom the possibility that someone could be indignant about a person wanting to travel with his or her musical instrument. I mean, I really don't understand this. Do you like hearing music? Do you like people playing instruments? If that is the case, then you need to expect that the situation in which a person NEEDS to take his or her instrument as a CARRY ON on an airplane occurs VERY OFTEN. Seriously, there's a guy in this thread complaining about not being able to carry on his desktop computer, as if that were comparable to a guitar. There's another guy complaining about 'information ethics'. The idea that a person will get any amount of hassle at all for taking an instrument on a plane directly causes less music to be made. Music is much more important than the minor whiny bullshit people are bitching about in this thread.