As a tour manager, ship the saxes, carry on the clarinet and flute. Pack the saxes in one box and ship to your hotel or directly to the ship. Put the clarinet and flute in a carry on. I cringe every time I have to ship valuable instruments via an airline. I have had many bad experiences. JFK and LaGuardia are very busy airports, get there at least two hours before, three would be better. Have a great set of gigs on the boat. Cheers
CAPT
Pre - 9/11 security people were rent-a-cops - and low paid ones. That might be one reason they screwed up. Now they are TSA employees. I have no idea of how much they are paid, but I don’t think I’ve ever run into an obnoxious one.
While I think shipping the instruments is a good idea, if you bring them with you some airlines give you a discount if you pay in advance when you do on-line check in. It is also faster.
As for laptops, I have a bag which has a laptop compartment. I unzip it, fold it out, and I can take my laptop through security without taking it out. Big time saver, and since the compartment is padded, easier on the laptop. Not worth it if you travel infrequently though.
A hint I learned in Vegas - if you have stuff in your pockets, put it into a carryon bag as you are waiting in line. Much faster and safer than dumping stuff into a tray. You can retrieve it when you sit down to put your shoes back on.
You must be lucky, because I’ve come across a number of genuinely obnoxious TSA agents superciliously enforcing arbitrary or non-existent rules as a clear show of personal power. And whether they are hourly contractors or TSA agents, they are essentially the same people with the same minimal level of training, except now permanently employed by a giant government bureaucracy mostly known for corruption and waste. However, the truly breathtakingly rude agents are still the minority, and most TSA agents are reasonably courteous as long as you follow the rules, which is impressive given the rudeness and obtuseness displayed by many passengers.
Agreed with shipping the large instruments separately and carrying on the small ones. Take everything, including cash, wallet, keys, and tickets out of your pockets and all jewelry off, and stash them securely in a carry-on bag. You may be held up at the screening line, and TSA will take no responsibility for anything stolen after it runs through the scanner. (I’ve had this happen; fortunately it was just loose cash and not a wallet.) Liquids have to be in a “1 quart plastic bag” (I actually had liquids confiscated for being in liter bag, which is 1/2" longer in one direction) and have to be in a container that has a capacity of no greater than 3.0 oz (also had a 3.4 oz container, legal for air travel in the rest of the entire world, confiscated). Shoes, belt, jacket, and any loose items like hats, caps, and scarves all have to come off, so the less you are actually wearing the easier it will be. Just bring a large messenger-type bag you can stuff them into.
The type of electronic devices that must be removed from luggage are unclear; I basically follow the policy of separating everything larger than a cell phone into a separate bin so that TSA can paw over my iPad, Kindle, laptop, portable speakers, et cetera. If you have some kind of unusual item like a sound level meter or GPS unit you can expect to be asked about it, whether they are capable of understanding the answers or not.
Now, let me tell you about the time I had to go through security carrying a box of (unloaded) pyrotechnic frangible nuts…
Stranger
I sincerely thank you all for the advice. This thread has been incredibly helpful.
I still don’t have my flight booked, so I won’t know all of the specifics for a bit. That being said, I plan on shipping at least my tenor sax for about $350 (one way) with insurance from FedEx. If I can’t carry on my alto, I’ll probably box them up together. It’s a huge price to pay, but at least it will give me piece of mind. There’s a FedEx center within walking distance of the Jacksonville International Airport (where I assume I’ll be arriving at), so that should work out fine.
I also have some unusual tools and liquids (ie a reed knife and some oils I use for the keys) so it’ll be much easier just throwing those in the sax case. I’ll also be taping handling instructions to the outside of my carry-on instrument cases along with pictures on the inside of how everything should be repacked.
I think I’m going to leave myself about 4-5 hours to make the flight since it sounds like I might get stuck in security, and I don’t mind hanging around reading a book or listening to my iPod. I can probably just get lunch/dinner in the airport anyway.
Hopefully everything will go well, especially with all of the help you’ve provided me!
Missed the edit window:
That shipping cost is also for overnight shipping. I won’t need to overnight it on my return trip.
4 - 5 hours is really a bit much. I’ve gotten though security in five minutes, and I’ve gotten through security in half an hour or a bit more. It depends strongly on when and where you fly. Another hint - book non-stop flights if at all possible (not direct flights that stop someplace and continue) since these greatly diminishes your chances of getting stuck somewhere - especially in winter. And both are better than connections. Try to minimize the chances of anything going wrong. If you do have to stop somewhere, try to stop in Dallas or Phoenix, not Chicago or Denver.
No guarantees. I once was on a flight Austin - Houston- Philadelphia which, because of thunder storms, finally got to Houston in about four hours via New Orleans. And stopped there for the night.
Also, go as early as possible. Flight delays propagate through the system, and the first flight of the day is more likely to be on time. There are also websites that give you on-time averages. Airports have very different on-time profiles. I’ve got a choice of airports. Oakland is very good about getting flights off on time, SFO, just across the bay, is horrible, due to fog issues.
I suspect TSA people might be in a better mood early also. I try to be cheerful, and it works. They are brusque of I screw up and forget to take something out of my pocket, but not nasty, and I deserve it and say I’m sorry.
I wanted to add this post for the sake of completeness:
Upon further research, the USPS is by-far the cheaper option over FedEx because they don’t charge as much for per lb. It’s still cheaper to ship two of my horns with them than just the one would be with FedEx. The only downside is that my insurance is limited to $5,000. This does not accurately represent recovery costs for one of my instruments, and the other is about $500 over the limit. I’m sure many other musicians have equipment that is also just above that limit. However, the hundreds of dollars saved over FedEx coupled with the low chance of there actually being so much damage as to be beyond repair gives the edge to the USPS.