Re: flying with my yfb-621


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Posted by Anthony Labelle on December 24, 2000 at 15:56:36:

In Reply to: flying with my yfb-621 posted by Dave on December 23, 2000 at 20:31:06:

Short of buying another seat for it, your best bet is using Charlie's "deflated basketball" method, and praying. I'm not a religious man myself, but the first few times I flew with my horn, I said more prayers than a priest on Sunday. There are a couple of things you might try(most have been mentioned on the board before)...

1) don't check your horn at the luggage counter, check it at the gate... that way you can be in posession of the horn right up until the point that you are boarding the plane. If it's icy out the ticket agent might tell you that you can't do that... don't listen to her. If you arrive at the gate with your horn, they won't make you go back to the front of the airport and check it at the counter.

2) this doesn't always work, but has for me on a couple of occassions... when boarding the plane, find out how full the flight is. If it's "open seating"(meaning not full at all.... more than 50% of the seats are empty), and the boarding attendants are in a good mood, ask if you can bring the horn on and sit it in the seat next to you. Flight attendants with any experience at all have likely dealt with musicians carrying large instruments, and know how sensitive we are... they can usually sympathize with you.


Now, hopefully it won't happen, but anticipating the worst, just remember that you can make the airlines pay for any damage. Don't sign anything that limits their liability. I don't know about all airlines, but I know Northwest Airlines associates are authorized to write off up to $3,000 without consulting anyone high up(if your flight gets cancelled, push for a $3,000 NWA voucher... I've gotten 2 so far!) If your horn gets damaged, and you've done everything possible to protect it(which means had it in a hard case), have a repair expert write up an estimate of the repair fees, and a guess as to how it was damaged/what would "have" to have happened for that damage to occur(it helps if he uses the word "incompetence" excessively), and have a copy of it sent to the airline. Make sure you report the damage within 24 hours, or you might be out of luck. When my large CC was trashed by NWA (Bell repeatedly folded, valveset pushed in), I received a cheque for $2,500 within 2 weeks, which was enough to get me an overhaul, and a nice new laquer job... with a little persistance, I was able to get another $500 for a new case. We've all heard the horror stories about airlines trashing our axes... just remember that it doesn't always have to have a bad ending. Best of luck!

-Anthony "can't wait to fly to Finland this summer" Labelle


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