I asked the flight attendants on every flight (EVA, AA, and A.Eagle) on the way to Mexico, and they all said I should be able to carry a guitar back from Mexico. The pilot on the commuter said that it depended on making friends with the flight attendant, though.
After I bought one, the luthier recommended I get a soft case to carry along, just in case the guitar would fit in a commuter’s storage space using that but not in the hard case.
On the first leg of the return journey, I found that there is almost NO space big enough for a guitar on a commuter like Eagle. There were three options on that plane-- the crew’s closet, which is normally already full of their carryons, a small closet next to the bathroom (in which my guitar would fit right side up only if in a soft case, or only upside down if in a hard case), and gate check. The overheads weren’t long enough.
Since my hard case was custom made for the guitar, with a snug fit of the padding all the way around the bouts, and there is extra room above the head, storing it upside down was safe enough, as no weight was placed upon the head or neck this way.
On the big planes, the flight attendants at the plane door were happy to take the guitar in the hard case to a closet for me. So it made it to Taiwan undamaged, and I saved at least NT$38,000 by getting it in Mexico instead of here, which covered almost 2/3 of my ticket price (if you add other things I got a LOT cheaper in Mexico, my ticket actually turned out to be free ).
Hi, Forumosans! You folks have been very helpful. We have a lot of questions since we’re in the process of moving to Taiwan from the U.S. I am bringing four instruments with me and I’m wondering how other guitarists have fared moving theirs. Any suggestions? I’ve got an acoustic/electric guitar, an electric semi-hollow body guitar, an electric bass and a Chapman Stick Touchboard. The last three have sturdy, custom-fit cases, but the acoustic/electric (the most vulnerable!) doesn’t–not yet, anyway. It’s a beautiful instrument but a real flight case would cost about as much as the guitar (yeah, I got a really good instrument for not too much money!).
My question is: How do you recommend shipping them? What’s the best method you’ve discovered so far?
I checked both China Airlines and Eva Air and they require you to purchase a seat ticket if you bring them on as cabin baggage. Gone are the days when the airlines would just “put it in the closet for me.” I know the airlines are notoriously tough on instruments, but I’m confident in the sturdiness of three out of four cases.
We’re also looking into possibly shipping a [partial] container of household goods. Should we box them and send them with the container? What are the risks there, especially if ours is not the only stuff in the container?
Let me know what you suggest! Thanks again for all the help!
Hi loaker, there are a couple of threads on this; I’ve asked mods to move them all to one area (probably International Travel, for want of a better area) for a merge including yours, and you’ll find some existing answers there. Briefly, some airlines will still take ONE guitar (the most fragile) and put it in a closet, but it must be your only carryon, and you should put it in an inexpensive hard case. You should try to board as early as allowed, so that there’s still space for it. Be first to the gate and bring brownies for the crew or something.
[url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/flying-with-or-shipping-guitars/38746/21 and EVA did this for me recently[/url] (Mexico on AmEagle to Dallas, then on American to Tokyo, and EVA to Taibei). If you are flying with your SO, he or she can also have one, but you’ll have to forego other carryons. The sturdier ones you can consider checking, although I’d still be afraid to do that.
Thanks!! I appreciate the threads, too. Unfortunately, we’ll be bringing other critical things with us like laptops, so the guitar can’t be the only carryon for either of us. I’ve pretty much decided I’d better get a decent case for it and cross my fingers with the checked baggage. I’ve sent guitars many times through checked baggage, even from the U.S. to Ecuador and back, with ok results (Ecuatoriana Airlines isn’t known for its gentleness with stuff!), so I’ll probably be ok. Just curious about what others are doing now. Thanks again for the input!. --Mark
Well, you can get away with a tiny bit of hand-carried items too, which could include a laptop – just not, in theory, a full-sized wheeled carryon piece of luggage.
Cool. Will do. Hope you get a chance to check out the link I sent just a bit ago. Here’s hoping a lot more music gets written and recorded once we get to Taiwan!
I’ll check out the threads tomorrow. (our tomorrow, of course.)
FWIW I’ve brought a couple of Strats to Taiwan from the US as checked airline baggage. Guitar in the standard Fender hard case and the Fender case inside a cardboard box as it would ship from Guitar Center, no tour grade flight cases or anything like that. Got here just fine even with several transfers.
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