Airlines and cameras

[londonuk]

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I personaly am awaiting my M8 (due sometime in April in London) as I currently use Canon EOS digis for my day job as a film & TV stills publicity snapper I fancy using a camera I have to work at. I have an old M2 so I'm familiar with Leicas. However, I digress.

My friend has recently returned from a job shooting the "blue train" in South Africa for a car magazine. On his flight out of the UK with Virgin he was charged an excess of $400 to take on board a Nikon D2/Nikon d200 and 3 lenses. The point he made was "wish I'd had the M8, it would have saved me $400 !!!!!!!!

[cam2000]

Could you be more specific as to why they charged that $400...... was it for excess carry on baggage?

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[londonuk]

Yes, carry on bagage. Actually, it was £275 going out and £75 coming back. The airlines have started to hit carry on weight in the pocket. No one wants to put their cameras in the hold as you never know if your going to see them again. I've had many lights ect go missing sometimes for days. They simply don't want to know, apparently the plane was only 50% full too.

[cam2000]

That is like going true Sherwood forest! Is British Airways charging also those prices?

[dugby]

British Airways is positioning themselves for this slice of the market....

 

They sent me an email two weeks ago advising:

 

"owing to OHS (Ocupational Health and Safety) issues, all checkin luggage weighing more than 23kg will be rejected

 

Passengers travelling :

economy will be allowed 1x 23kg bag

business will be allowed 2x 23kg bags

first will be allowed 3x 23kg bags"

 

Then I checked in at Heathrow, with 3 bags, 25kg, 27kg and 29kg, the BA Check-in personnel said to me this will likely be the last time I can do this, and that I should prepare for the new handling weights........

[Eoin]

Aer Lingus here in Ireland are charging a fee of €4 if you pay online or €8 at the airport for each piece of checked baggage, each way on UK and European flights. Just another way to inflate the "low cost" ticket price you pay. Hand baggage is limited to 1 piece with a maximum weight of 6kg. Oh boy am I glad I dumped my Canon (bricks) bodies.

[dannirr]

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I think this is a real issue. I used to travel to New Mexico and take on board all my 4x5 equipment. When they refused to stop xraying my film boxes, I bought a 4x5 digital back and that was ok for a while - then they stopped me taking the gear on board - size restriction.

 

I do not trust checking the stuff - not loss - damage to sensitive digital scanning back.

 

Now I have left all my large format stuff in New Mexico - use it when I am there and go without it at home.

 

The M8's travel with me.

 

Danni

[chrism]

With the possibility that static played a part in some camera failures, and the M8 manual talking about resetting the camera after exposure to magnetic fields, has anyone taken an M8 through a luggage screening X-ray and had any problems?

 

Chris

[Venkman]

British Airways is positioning themselves for this slice of the market....

 

[...]

 

"owing to OHS (Ocupational Health and Safety) issues, all checkin luggage weighing more than 23kg will be rejected

 

I experienced similar a couple of years back on a world tour - it was airport specific at that time. Depending on what the unions (?) negotiated with the airport, Australian and New Zealand airports had totally different weight restrictions - sometimes my case with 42kg went through without a problem, sometimes an "extra heavy" tag was attached and two times I had to remove something and put it into the carry on bag, because the workers were not allowed to lift that heavy.

 

Sounds like BA is either restricted under british or european law there.

[reven]

Now I normaly travel between London and Munich, but when I go on longer trips, like US or asia when I can't even take all my gear on board ( to much ) So I do check it in. But I'm not worried about it. I mean You can get an insurance wich would pay for it. ( YES there are some who even pac for checked in camera gear)

[egibaud]

Low cost companies are planning to charge 1 Euro per picture taken during flight

[Riley]

Perhaps if you have to pay for it now anyway

FedEx is a more reliable alternate ?

[spylaw4]

I was going to say "Don't get me started" but ......

 

IMO all this rubbish about one piece of hand baggage less than a certain size/weight is laughable. If you pack a carry-on case of max. allowed size (and how heavy is the case itself?) it's going to be way over the so-called max. allowed weight, even if the contents are only clothes and toiletries. Have you ever been weight checked? If it looks small enough and you're not leaning over at 45deg......!

 

My main piece of luggage especially on long trips regularly weighs in at 22-23kg, and more on the way back! Only once had a heavy label attached (at LHR).

 

What really pi**es me off is the duty-free problem. If you buy duty-free alcohol outside the EU and have to change planes in the EU to get to your final destination - say goodbye to your purchase if you are taking it as hand luggage even in a Duty-free sealed bag. They will whip it off you at the transit check-in. The only way you can get your bottle(s) home is to buy it non-duty-free, box it well and check it in, or pack it in your luggage if it's only 1 bottle. I speak from experience.

 

The new EU regulations promoted by BAA are IMO simply using "security" as a way to try to speed up the routine security process which is well bogged down due to lack of staff.

 

The low-cost airlines will use any excuse to try to extort extra cash from their customers, and the travelling masses seem content to pay up and shut up.

 

Oh, and you should see the hand luggage free-for all in S America and SE Asia!

 

Rant over... for now, but there's probably something I've overlooked!

[DaveEP]

BA and other airlines have implemented tighter restrictions on the checkin luggage, and have done for some time. However, I have noticed an easing of the weight restrictions on 'carry on' luggage since the new 'size' restrictions came in. I can no longer take my Tamrac roller for instance - because (with the lap top in it) it is 1cm too fat. Perhaps they think that the size will restrict the weight enough that they no longer need to bother with the weight. However, this topic does disturb me - given that I used to travel with 2 Canon 1 series bodes and a bagfull of L lenses as a carry on - maybe I just bought the M8 in time!

[stunsworth]

Brian, there have always been weight restrictions on carry on luggage as far as I'm aware - even if the airlines didn't always apply the rules. Personally I'm not too happy at the thought of a 15-20 kg bag falling out of an overhead locker onto my head :-)

[Cindy Flood]

I just flew from Orlando to Phoenix and back with the M8, 5D, Dell laptop, 100-400L, CZ 35-70 vario sonnar, and 4 Leica-M lenses in a Pelican roller case. I carried it on. It was heavy, but it met the size restriction. The x-ray machine did not seem to hurt the M-8 as someone has asked. (I did have an M-8 power freezup and reset, but cannot link it to the trip through the airport. It froze up several weeks later.)

[londonuk]

There is no hard and fast rule here (yet), if you're lucky you can get away with a virtual studio set up. on the other hand, they'll make you strip to your boxers.

As in my initial post, £275 excess for a couple of cameras is currently more expensive than BA's London-NY return !! Ten trips at this cost and you've as good as bought the M8.

[dugby]

Brian, there have always been weight restrictions on carry on luggage as far as I'm aware - even if the airlines didn't always apply the rules. Personally I'm not too happy at the thought of a 15-20 kg bag falling out of an overhead locker onto my head :-)

 

On that note, during a flight I did witness a heavy carry-on fall onto the head of another passenger, the poor lady was severly injured and required hospitalisation. I felt very sorry for her and have ever since been very cautious about what is above me, and who attempts to access anything above me as I always have a reserved isle seat in my travel profile.

 

And recently I get a bit vocal when other people attempt to move (touch) my bag containing my cameras.

[POKO]

More woes...I understand your pain!

 

Just got back to Canada after shooting in London on Friday. Had a 15” G4 laptop, Hasselblad kit with four lenses, phaseback, prism, winder cables etc. - in other words HEAVY. It did fit in the take on luggage frame and I was not hassled unlike the person next to me at the check in who had to pull his laptop out of his smaller backpack and send the backpack through. No consistency in the counters approach to the customers. Zoom Airlines

 

Went to the East coast of Canada on Sunday with the same kit on my back ALONG with six cases of lighting gear. Was charged $ 450.00 CDN for the additional baggage - which could have been packed smaller if it were not for the new weight restrictions. Oh, and NONE of the gear arrived on the flight - I had to go to the airport at 2am to pick up the gear myself. Air Canada.

 

All this to say I am looking forward to getting my M8 back from Leica. I’ll buy a lighter/smaller hot light kit and this will never be a problem again!

 

Per

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[winks147]

Wait a minute. You guys are complaining about carryon weight limits; and, if I recall my conversion factors, 23 kg equates to 50 lbs. Right? Good lord, what are you people putting in your carryons? Frankly, it is no wonder the airlines are limiting this. Let's say a plane carries 120 people. That's 3 tons of unaccounted weight if everyone maxes out. That can be a problem.

 

I guess I am missing the point of all this b!tching.