Flute Causes Evacuation of Airport

hmartley · Post by **hmartley** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 4:41 pm

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/01/14/ai ... index.html

Be careful if you're flying with yer flutes!!

andrew · Post by **andrew** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 4:50 pm

I have heard recently that a flute nearly caused the evacuation of a flute forum !

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 5:23 pm

Hey,

the poor guy didn't get to take his flute with him! A business trip without my flute would drive me nuts. Perhaps it would be best to take flutes on the flight with you where you can explain, and even play, the offending piece of wood/plastic/metal for the nice security officers.

Eric

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 5:25 pm

andrew wrote:I have heard recently that a flute nearly caused the evacuation of a flute forum !

Ha! Good one!

Loren

beowulf573 · Post by **beowulf573** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 5:42 pm

Turned out to be an electronic practice chanter for a bag pipe.

When flying back from Rhode Island they were confused by my two flutes, one keyless one keyed. Several people were called over for consultation before letting me through. I had visions of them dropping the flutes or otherwise banging on them to make sure they were really flutes.

Flying out they didn't give them a second thought.

Eddie

Casey Burns · Post by **Casey Burns** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 5:55 pm

I have heard that more and more they aren't letting musical instruments as carry-on. Thus if one has an old flute, expensive violin or irreplaceable bagpipe etc. one has to trust it to the vagaries of the Airport Baggage System. Yikes!!!

"Sorry I can't play that concert tonight. I think my flute went to Guam."

The worst for me was in the mid 80's when I was flying to the east coast with a few dozen flutes as carry-on, was late for my flight and in a rush. The baggage screener insisted in looking through the bores of each with plugs and endcaps removed, etc.

This was only a minor hassle compared to a fellow flutemaker - upon returning with a pile of turned boxwood rounds, most of them highly figured, an agent of our government insisted that each might contain illegal drugs. This agent proceeded to drill each piece from one side to the other right at the middle. Of course, none was found. Drilled every single one - about 20 flutes worth! All my friend could get out of this pile of wood were foot joints and end caps! It was a considerable loss for him.

Then again there was the time they allowed me to board a flight with 2 boxes full of horseshoe crab shells - we don't have these here and I knew of several seashell collectors who might want one. The look on the face of the baggage screener was worth it! But I have also had to play pipes for these people to convince them that these aren't a weapon! At least not in the conventional sense....

Casey Burns
http://www.caseyburnsflutes.com

JessieK · Post by **JessieK** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 6:00 pm

Casey Burns wrote:This was only a minor hassle compared to a fellow flutemaker - upon returning with a pile of turned boxwood rounds, most of them highly figured, an agent of our government insisted that each might contain illegal drugs. This agent proceeded to drill each piece from one side to the other right at the middle. Of course, none was found. Drilled every single one - about 20 flutes worth!

Arrrggghhhh!!!!

andrew · Post by **andrew** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 6:05 pm

This isn't a new problem .A nineteenth C. customs officer is supposed to have bored a hole in a Stradavari Cello . The problem is a great one for string players who cannot subject instruments woth hundreds of thousands to humidity and temperature changes in aeroplane holds .The airlines have been most unhelpful .
I am unhappy about the problem of shipping flutes across the Atlantic .They are a great risk of cracking .

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 6:12 pm

andrew wrote:I am unhappy about the problem of shipping flutes across the Atlantic .They are a great risk of cracking .

If the wood is seasoned properly, and the flutes are packaged and humidified properly cracking shouldn't be a problem.

The real risk is what happens to the flute once it arrives, especially if the flute is made from wood that was "seasoned" in high humidity climate, and then ends up in the hands of someone who lives in a significantly drier climate, but doesn't humidify the instrument......

Loren

Dana · Post by **Dana** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:00 pm

andrew wrote:A nineteenth C. customs officer is supposed to have bored a hole in a Stradavari Cello . The problem is a great one for string players who cannot subject instruments woth hundreds of thousands to humidity and temperature changes in aeroplane holds.

I heard a great story about a cellist that paid full fare to take his cello on the plane. It was strapped into the seat next to him. At meal time, he demanded that the flight attendent serve the cello dinner.

Dana

fluter_d · Post by **fluter_d** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:15 pm

Casey Burns wrote:I have heard that more and more they aren't letting musical instruments as carry-on. Thus if one has an old flute, expensive violin or irreplaceable bagpipe etc. one has to trust it to the vagaries of the Airport Baggage System. Yikes!!!

"Sorry I can't play that concert tonight. I think my flute went to Guam."

Text from the Folk Alliance website (http://www.folk.org/Advocacy/advocacy.htm):

Thanks to meetings of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) with the U.S. Department of Transportation, musicians are now able to carry on their instruments into the cabin when traveling by plane.

They have a link to the printable version of the letter from the USDoT on headed paper, so you can carry it on and use it to explain to airport security (who apparently haven't been fully informed, at least from stories I've heard) that your flute (or whatever) can be carried on. However, I'm not sure that the link on the page will work; this one (http://www.local1000.com/pdf/carryon.pdf)
should work.

Sadly, I'm not sure it applies to instruments like double bass.

Deirdre

The Sporting Pitchfork · Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:19 pm

Wow, guess I'm lucky.

A little over a week ago, I flew from San Francisco back to Japan. I had my flute with me and the security guy took a quick glance at it, but he didn't really seem to care. Good thing I didn't mention the powdered uranium stuffed up the headjoint...They did seem strangely obsessed with my inkan [Japanese name stamp] though. Weird.

It's funny because long ago (before 9/11) when I used to travel on domestic flights in the US with my Highland pipes, the security officers' eyes would almost invariably pop out of their heads when I put my case through the x-ray machine. I'd always have to open the case up and explain that this weird thing was a musical instrument and not at all suitable for the launching of small explosive projectiles. When I've brought my pipes (either Highland or the even more deadly looking uilleann ones) on international flights, hardly anyone has made any mention of them at all when they went through security.

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 8:41 pm

fluter_d wrote:They have a link to the printable version of the letter from the USDoT on headed paper, so you can carry it on and use it to explain to airport security (who apparently haven't been fully informed, at least from stories I've heard) that your flute (or whatever) can be carried on. However, I'm not sure that the link on the page will work; this one (http://www.local1000.com/pdf/carryon.pdf) should work.

Déjà VU! There was a thread on this over on the uilleann forum a while back.

The only thing to keep in mind is that no airline is required to let you on with anything. That paper should help smooth things out for larger instruments (flutes usually collapse down pretty small, no?), but it doesn't guarantee that your instrument will get on the flight. All it does is make the musical instrument NOT count towards the number of carry-ons. They can still deny passage to anything they like, but at least it'll make the paeons pause for a moment and let you carry more stuff through the checkpoint.

Looked at from the less-jaded side, at least the document doesn't guarantee boarding to an instrument which is being used to hide something dangerous. Not that THAT happens all that often, either.

Of course, I went to Africa about a year ago (right before the Iraq war) and a friend, who boarded the KLM jet in Houston, got off in Amsterdam, got back on in Amsterdam, and got off in Dar es Salaam . . . turned out his hunting knife was in his jacket. A big one.

Eh, well.

Stuart