Hi guys whatsup. Haven't posted in a long time :P

I just had a question. I'm going on vacation to Germany next month and I wanna bring my acoustic guitar over for the 3 weeks that i will be there. I don't wanna break it and knowing how airport personell throws around the luggage this is my big fear right now. Does anyone have any experience doing such a thing? And with Air canada maybe?

Thanks for your help!

-D

They used to be carried as hand-luggage, but I'm not sure if there are new restrictions on hand-luggage that might affect that.

I very much doubt it, this was on the BBC's website last week:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5273576.stm

While this is disappointing news for musicians departing from the UK, it affects flights out of the UK not Canada.

The OP is flying from Canada so he should check with Canadian officials and/or Air Canada to see if the same or similar rules apply regarding musical instruments.

If he is stopping over in the UK then I'm sure that these rules will then affect his departure from the UK.

If he is not stopping over in the UK at any time during his trip it is unlikely these rules will apply as the rules affecting Canadian airports restricted only fluids and other carry on was still allowed.

However he should also check to see what rules German authorities have in effect at their airports.

Cheers
Steve

I feared it might be so, but Oh that is so ridiculous! All those professional musicians and so on who can't take their instruments as hand luggage.

I think it's completely nonsensical to restrict the size of hand luggage like that on security grounds ..... a bomb can be much smaller than laptop size to destroy a plane anyway!

Isn't an acoustic guitar a bit big for hand luggage anyway? I mean where would you store that!? My friend recently had to buy an extra seat for his bass guitar on an EasyJet flight!

I would recommend investing in a good quality hardcase and then it can go in the hold.

AFAIK and responses on a Sax forum I visit seem to confirm this, instruments are still allowed as carry on except flying from the UK, which has heightened restrictions that will probably be dropped in the near future.

Your best bet though is to contact your airline and ask them. The initial panic that saw the bolshoi musicians returning to moscow by train seems to have passed.

Dont blame you for not wanting to check it, good hard case or not. Generally instruments (except large things like basses and cellos) are in practice exempt from carry on size restrictions.

There is no prohibition listed on the canadian security site here

and this US site says you can take musical instruments in addition to your carry on.