The American Federation of Musicians has finally negotiated a deal with the Federal Government requiring Airlines to treat musical instruments as carry on luggage. Download the following letter and carry it with you to the airport.
http://www.local802afm.org/about/TSALetter.pdf
This doesn’t have anything to do with the airlines, only that the TSA screeners at the security checkpoint will allow you to take three items to the gate.
Once you’re at the gate, you’re still at the mercy of the airline as to whether or not they consider your pipe case a carry-on. They can still point to the sizing box and say “Sir, you’ll have to check that.”
There are no guarantees when travelling, but there are strategies to reduce the risk of your beloved being smashed to pieces, lost or stolen.
a) Book lower volume flights on lightly travelled weekdays, the earlier the better. If it means getting up at 4AM for a 7AM flight, do it, the chances are it won’t be crowded. Use this to your advantage. Show up early so you can board as soon as the gate agent announces that your seat assignment row is boarding. You can nap on the plane or when you get to where you’re going. I’d rather lose a little sleep than let some gorilla abuse my pipes.
b) Get a seat assignment at the rear of the aircraft. You will board after the senior citizens, families with small children, and those in need of assistance, but you will get on before most everyone else and be pretty certain of having an overhead bin for your use. Squatter’s rights, eh folks?
c) If challenged by an FA or a gate agent, explain very nicely that you are carrying a valuable and irreplaceable musical instrument. This should work, especially if there are lots of people in line behind you. Again, early arrival is critical.
d) Once seated, if someone can’t get their garment bag in your bin because of your pipes, and this person starts to complain to the FA, you can say (calmly and politely): “look, my instrument is expensive, fragile, and irreplaceable. It is sensitive to extremes of temperature and putting it in the baggage exposes it to damage from the cold. If you check your bag of clothes and it ends up sitting on the tarmac in Nairobi at least you can take a cab or drive to a department store and buy new clothes. I’m SOL if I check my instrument and the same thing happens”. This should work, particularly if you’ve followed all the previous steps - taking a lightly booked flight, arriving early, booking a seat at the back of the aircraft, boarding as soon as the gate agents let you, etc.
I don’t like your chances of getting your pipes on board regardless of your pipe case size if you arrive as the gate agent announces last call for boarding your flight. Punctuality, the gate agent’s need to get the plane boarded quickly and efficiently, and other people’s laziness are your best friends for ensuring the safety of your instrument when traveling. A pipe box that fits the sizing template helps but will not guarantee that you will find room for it onboard, especially if you arrive at last call for boarding.
Another thing to consider is how many carry on’s you have with you. Try to keep it to just the pipecase keeping anything you might need in it. That way you may have a bit of leeway when they are letting people with three fullsized suitcases on right beside you.
Patrick.
Very important point there, Pat, thanks. If you’re gonna try to carry your pipes on board an aircraft, just bring the pipes with anything you might need (like your medication! 
) in the box and check the rest.
Oh, and one other thing - it’s worth it to book non-stop whenever possible; making connecting flights tends to complicate things unnecessarily.
Michael- you bring up a good question. Does a musical instrument fall into the max piece carryon rule? Can I bring on two instruments, say my 1/2 set and my fiddle case , which should be exempt, and a laptop , which should count one of my normal carryon amount and a rollaway luggage (that fits the size envelope) which should count as 2 of my carryon?
Fel,
IMHO, you’re asking for trouble. I’d leave either the pipes or the fiddle home and only carry on one instrument and the laptop, check the rolling bag.
My solution was to find a box that would fit my 3/4 set and also fit in the airline’s arbitrary sizing box. It’s a surplus Olympus endoscope case, I can fit my set in it diagonally with only removing the bass and baritone drone tips. No more worries. Even with this, I’ll still check my rolling bag and only carry on the pipes.
M
Or, just fly Al Italia. They are cultured enough to welcome all musicians and openly accomidate the instruments with great care. It is actually built into their policy.
Virgil
can’t get from L.A. to Mississippi (work related trips and perhaps the Jackson tionol) on Al Italia.
I’m bringing this post back up, I’ve a question: Has anyone gotten any grief about regulator tuning pins being potential weapons? I was thinking I’d maybe check in a seperate box as baggage with the pins, they’re sharp as box cutters. Or perhaps file them down for the trip.
Terry McGee’s site has good info about various flute myths, including the old saw about the cold and low pressure of airplane baggage holds. If it’s good enough for dogs and cats why not a set of pipes?
The pipes do not have an internal heat source, nor the fur to keep the heat in.
Clearly Joseph you didn’t get the deluxe set from your pipemaker 
Terry also put a flute in the oven, then took it out and put it in the freezer. Nothing happened.
Sharp apple, Terry.
Sharp apple, or dull hatchet… 
…whooooops!..How’d I miss that?
“Terry also put a flute in the oven, then took it out and put it in the freezer. Nothing happened”.
Jesus Christ! 
Some experiment!
So what did that prove 
except perhaps that the flute was expendable. Anyhow, flutes don’t have reeds. I rest my case.
Joseph (the UK one).
Not to mention that flutes are a bit less vulnerable to the gentle handling of the baggage crew, with fewer (i.e. NO) moving parts compared to pipes. 
It probably wasn’t even his flute.
Hey, “Dude” - if you want to trust your pipes to baggage handlers, good luck. For me, it isn’t the temperature in the cargo hold that I"m worried about.
Here’s a test: next time you fly, try to get a window seat and what how the ground crew treat the bags. One hint: they treat the baggage as though it were… baggage!
It probably wasn’t even his flute.
Hey, “Dude” - if you want to trust your pipes to baggage handlers, good luck. For me, it isn’t the temperature in the cargo hold that I"m worried about.
Here’s a test: next time you fly, try to get a window seat and watch how the ground crew treat the bags. One hint: they treat the baggage as though it were… baggage! 