Subject: Re: PUPT: Flying vs shipping
Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 16:59:57 -0400


OK, here's some flying info from the dark side.

It used to be that if you were flying nationally, you could check in
curbside and bribe the skycaps.  A $20 tip made everything a lot smaller and
lighter.  I've gotten 4 oversize cases on on one ticket.  If they took them
into the counter they'd weigh them and you were at their mercy.  Since 9/11
and definitely since January, when they kicked security into high gear, even
if there is curbside check-in, they automatically take the cases into the
counter.

So, recently,  I've been taking them to the counter.  First off, you should
have professional looking cases.  They don't like makeshift boxes.  Custom
made cases with handles and straps help.  In my experience, they also seem
more concerned with weight than size.  It's easier for them to put the cases
on the handy scale, then to try and find who has the measuring tape.  I've
also found that when in doubt, act dumb.  This was always my technique on
international flights, where they expect you  to be a stupid American
anyway.  "How much does this way?"  "Duhh, I dunno."  "Is it over so many
inches and so many pounds?"  "Duhh, I don't think so."  Like Robert, I've
found that usually they get so frustrated they just wave the cases through.
Of course, with all this you're taking a chance, and occasionally they will
charge you for oversize cases.  Last time, I got hit up for $80 per case.

As far as shipping goes, apparently, the gorillas who don't pass the test
for the airline baggage handlers get sent to the shipping companies.  The
few times I've had my cases shipped there was much more damage then from
taking them as luggage.

Notes on recent security measures.  As far as flying in general, it's not
that bad.  They're checking your idea a few more times, and searching more
stuff and doing random frisking and wanding, (wear socks without holes, they
make you take off your shoes to put through the machine) but the lines
haven't been all that long, and usually everybody who's showing up the
recommended 2 hours ahead of time wind up sitting at the gate with nothing
to do for those 2 hours.  At the Continental Terminal in Newark, they now
have a giant x-ray machine (coming soon to an airport near you) to pass all
of the checked luggage through before boarding, and they hold your boarding
pass until they have x-rayed your luggage.  Even so, I had one case that
wouldn't fit through the machine, which had to be searched and swabbed for
exposives.  As this was the case which holds a puppet that I set on fire,
based on a juggler's torch which has been doused in charcoal lighter fluid
for 10 years, I was understandably nervous, as they kept putting the swabs
into the explosive materials detecting machine.  Evidently, there wasn't
enough of it on the torch to detect (I try to evaporate and burn off as much
of it as possible before packing).  I repacked the case, when they were done
and checked  it through.

By the way, I got a trunk and 2 oversized cases on that flight.  No charge.

P.




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