
Carry Your Instrument On The Plane – It's The Law - radley
http://aristake.com/?post=87
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md224
> 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.

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coldtea
> _This feels like a breach of information ethics._

Oh, please...

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Groxx
"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.

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backlava
Why limit yourself to printing out real laws?

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electromagnetic
That's it, I'm printing out a Neighbourly Code of Conduct Law... I'm so
gatecrashing my neighbours house, her cooking always smells delicious.

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4ngle
The wiggling email fields are the most obnoxious things I've seen in recent
history.

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brokentone
I don't want to be "that guy," but I had to stop reading in the middle.

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ariherstand
i hear you! working on changing it as we speak. :)

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pmiller2
If 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.

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bunderbunder
Show me a cello successfully stowed in the overhead bin or under a seat, and
I'll be a very impressed person.

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paxswill
The law allows musicians to buy an extra ticket for their instrument, so they
can put it in a seat.

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wazoox
An 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.

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kubiiii
Synth lover here, what was the model?

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wazoox
Actually was my master keyboard, a Yamaha PF-P100. It happened in 1995 back
when I was a professional musician :)

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kubiiii
Oh no a boring master keyboard :') Well those prove useful sometimes. They are
the honda civic of keyboards.

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wazoox
Actually 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 :)

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mseebach
And 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.

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jat850
I'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?

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DougBTX
1\. 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.

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mseebach
2: There is currently no allowed cabin baggage equivalent to a guitar.

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kumarski
I 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.

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wyclif
I'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
> 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.

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yodsanklai
Thanks, 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.

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AccordionGuy
I'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.

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gtani
Pretty 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)

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tks2103
Holy 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.

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001sky
_Technically 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
I was on a domestic Delta flight recently and someone brought a trombone case
and 1 personal item without issue.

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contingencies
I'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)

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dreamfactory
I 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.

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mmaunder
Nice, 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.

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joeconway
As 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)

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sborsje
When 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.

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jacques_chester
In 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.

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lignuist
I guess airlines fear orchestras.

