travelling on a plane with a guitar?

samshive

Hi Everyone

Does anyone have experience with travelling on a plane with a guitar - do they allow you to take it on as carry on luggage or do you have to check it in.

AlanRatcliffe

Depends on the airline and their rules are always changing (and may be overridden by security) - there has been a little relaxation in the rules lately thanks to bad press for some incidents. IIRC, Andy Innes (Johnny Clegg) said that Mango had relaxed their rules a lot a couple of weeks ago.

But key is to always check with the airline beforehand. Find out what their written policy is (and print it out so you have it on hand in case you get told otherwise by a difficult staff member).

Many will allow you to carry it to the plane and then cabin staff will store it in the forward hold (provided you don't have it in a massive flight case). Some don't allow that and others will only guarantee it will go in the cabin with you if you buy another ticket for it (and some will not allow that).

peterleroux

SAA's ccurrent policy requires you to buy a ticket for your guitar if you want it in the cabin. Never flown with one so I'm not sure how strictly this is applied.

Chabenda

I have found that using a gig bag enables most electrics to be stored in the overhead locker and so far have been allowed to carry them on board.

Perhaps it also depends what you look like because my mate and his wife both had acoustics, we were in the queue to the plane at ORT and they were told that their Epi acoustics, in gig bags, had to go into the hold. I was standing right next to them with my resonator and got to take in on board. Weird....

Chabenda

peterleroux wrote: SAA's ccurrent policy requires you to buy a ticket for your guitar if you want it in the cabin. Never flown with one so I'm not sure how strictly this is applied.

Ha ha! I see that the regs put a limit of 8kgs for baggage in overhead lockers - that must irk the Les Paul players :roflmao:

I would imagine that a Les Paul shifting position on landing could cause quite a problem for the pilot...

samshive

Hi all

Thanks for the replies. I was asking the question since I was travelling to London last week and wanted to know how to bring a guitar over if I came across a great deal.

Alas, I didn't have enough time to hunt for any second hand deals, and new guitars in London did not seem to offer any significant savings as compared to SA (at least in the couple of shops that I saw). So alas, my half-hearted quest was not fruitful.

But at least I have an idea of what the administrative burden would be to travel with a guitar on a plane.

Cheers

guidothepimmp

Hi

Righto.. so SAA say a lot on their site but in reality they are very accomodating

I flew from usa to jhb last week with guitar in tow. I fully expected to be told it had to go in the hold. Instead.. the check in lady said to take it onboard. Onboard i asked the crew, they said to just stick it in the overhead. If there was no space they offered to put it in a cupboard in 1st class.
This was guitar in kts hardshell case.

My mate flew london to jhb on BA and brought me a guitar.. same thing, they let him take it onboard in the overhead.

Methinks the problem is the local routes where the smaller planes havesmaller overhead bins.

Goodluck

D-tox

Went all the way to China with my bass in a harcase a few years ago, also Dubai and Germany, no issues.
I did however made sure I was first on the plane so that they could place it in the rear upright storage.. was with Cathay pacific and Emirates, vey friendly hosteses..