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Topic Date User

Climbing gear as carry-on baggage 9-Sep-2008 At 3:39:30 PM Wollemi

Message

Benno, is your post about trying to save a buck by sneaking through metal gear in your
hand luggage, or otherwise? If it is not about the former, why struggle with hand
luggage to the cafe, then the toilet, then to the boarding area, then overhead into a
locker?
Saving a buck? Jetstar have insisted on weighing EVERYTHING I had - together! - the
last couple of times interstate and at Christchurch. Planning for ski-mountaineering will
now include budgeting for excess luggage everytime now. Metal-edged skis, a single
ice-axe, half-CF stocks, helmet, boot crampons, a couple of 'biners, shovel, snow-
stakes, tent-poles. Then and there, just after 5am, $10 per kilo excess was demanded
of me - the bargain $1 books from the NZAC were no longer a bargain; I was not treated
like this at Sydney en-route to NZ. Then the flight home was only 45% full of pax!

Additional to budgeting for excess luggage fees, thoughts include;
- ringing ahead and explain that your travels involve being self-reliant and hence the
unusual and weighty gear
- getting to the airport early and put on a smile at the Service Desk (different to the
check-in) and ask if the commisionaire could meet you at the check-in to look after
the heavy gear. When I used to cycle-tour, the 'commisionaire' at Qantas would
look after bulky items without any comment.
- a year before 9/11, on completion of a sea-kayak trip from Tweed Heads to
Townsville, I got into debates at the travel agent and then at check-in, simply
because I declared an EPIRB. Security for Qantas told me to pull out the battery,
and when I couldn't as it is a sealed unit, told me to dispose of it. I stood my
ground and stated that surely I was not the forst expeditioner to fly Qantas - what
did others do? Only then did they tell me to put the EPIRB in my checked-in
luggage. I wanted to carry it to prevent breakage by crushing (something I have
since done myself away from airlines). I don't declare EPIRBS at all now, but carry
it in my hand-luggage, anyway. The point here is that airline fuss and contradictory
information existed prior to 9/11.

I recently flew Virgin Blue for the first time (without any heavy gear although I was
returning from the Sydney - Gold Coast yacht race). Aside from the hosties being older
: )' - I was asked at check-in if a 'able-bodied man such as myself would mind taking
a wing-seat, so as to be able to assist in the time of an emergency, if need be?' I am
now formulating a way to make my future excess luggage a trade-off for this request
from Virgin Blue.