airline travel, tools on the go

[Zen Reinhardt]

Dear Howard, List:

One thing to keep in mind is whether or not you can take out insurance for
your tools during transit.  Often, you can insure your checked luggage for
a lot more than you can your carry-on luggage.  Then if the worst happens
.. they'll be owing you money towards the replacement of the lost items.

Personally I haven't travelled very much with a full set of tools; usually
just what I may have picked up at a convention somewhere.  By being a
one-bag traveller, the tools have always ended up in the same bag with the
more normal things, such as clothes.

Another option would be to Fed-Ex your tools ahead of yourself.  It might
seem expensive on the surface, but the grief it can save you is worth it. 
No explaining to security personnel what those funny metal objects are.  No
hauling inordinately heavy bags, let alone heaving them up into the
overhead bin.  I did that with most of the tools I brought to the
convention in Orlando last summer, and then sent all of the tools home that
way afterwards.  Much less luggage to worry about ... or forgetting
somewhere.

By the way (call me a worry-wart or whatever) -- I would strongly
discourage anyone from putting heavy luggage into the overhead bins no
matter how compact the packing job.  Stuff does shift around en route, and
sometimes something is just waiting to tumble out of the bin as soon as it
is unlatched.  One of my customers told me about how her husband sustained
a closed-head injury when something heavy fell out of an overhead bin and
landed squarely on his head when the bin was opened at the end of the
flight.

Just a few thoughts -- have a good flight

ZR!  RPT
Ann Arbor  MI
diskladame@provide.net
----------
> From: Howard S. Rosen  <hsrosen@emi.net>
> To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Subject: airline travel
> Date: Sunday, November 16, 1997 6:18 PM
> 
> Dear Colleagues,
> 
> Here is an interesting question..........
> 
> Has anyone travelled on an airline and taken a standard sized tool case
as
> carry on luggage?
> 
> I must bring mine to New York (from Florida) to service both of my
> daughters' new pianos and I would hate to check it as ordinary baggage.
Now
> I know that their local dealer should solve their complaints (a few
> sluggish dampers etc), but daddy has to do it. In addition I will be
saving
> them a lot of bucks if I install the full Dampp-Chaser systems that I
> bought them and had drop shipped to their homes. 
> 
> I would appreciate  input on airline travel with tools. Thanks in
advance.
> 
> Howard S. Rosen, RPT
> Boynton Beach, Florida
> 
>