Airlines bend us over the barrel and take our money to fly with a board. One would think that since we are paying almost the cost of a ticket to fly with a precious piece of sporting equipment that they would be taking very good care of it. We all know this isn’t the case. I flew out to San Francisco this past weekend. despite double wrapping the board in bubble wrap and padding it with my wet suit, they managed to clip a piece out of my tail the size of the last joint of my thumb. When showed to baggage claim the response I received was “is there damage to the case? No? Sorry, can’t help you” Today/last night i was sitting on the plane watching them load my board into the hold, and the baggage handler THREW MY BOARD FOUR FEET THROUGH THE AIR onto the loading ramp. Sure enough, when I check my board after picking it up at baggage claim there is a nice hairline fracture in the rail, pretty minor, but still. I witnessed misshandling of my luggage and the bastards are forced to pay. So when the airline rep heard that airlines are notoriusly bad handlers of surfboards and that surfers pretty much hate the airlines, she suggested I collect some accounts of boards being desecrated by the airlines, assemble it into a nice little case and present it to her airline.
please post any and all accounts of your boards being mistreated by the airlines.
Sorry to hear about that. I haven’t had any personal bad experiences, but a good buddy of mine got his boards shreaded on our trip to costa rica = he had to borrow my spare board for the rest of the trip. No one’s really quite sure how it happened, but basically he had two boards packed in a travel bag and when he went to grab his boards in the baggage claim, the last 2-3ft of the tails of the boards got shreaded off like someone took a planer to them. Not a great way to start out a trip. The airline was United. And it cost $80 each way for 2 boards!
I remember seeing a baggage handler from the plane window throw my board from the plane onto the tarmac. Amazingly the board (in it’s cover) was undamaged.
I don’t know if you can still get away with it but years ago on trips to Puerto Rico
and once on a LA to Hawaii flight we just took the fins off, put stick on tags on the boards and handed them in at luggage. I remember a few scratches but a lot less damage than when we went bubble wrap, blankets and bags route.
Looked out the terminal window and watched my board bag, half off the tractor trailer, being dragged along the tarmac all the way to the plane. The tape I had wrapped around the tail to keep the zip closed took a hammering and the board bag wasn’t looking to good. I think the dragging thing is how boards get shredded.
Fly Virgin Pacific - they have surfer / surfboard friendly policies
This is probably not what you want to hear but I have not had a problem yet. I have flown with a big longboard to Puerto Vallarta, Cabo twice, El Salvador, Galapagos, Oahu, and Puert Escondido. I am always nervous as hell when I fly with my board but so far I have had zero damage and zero times that my board didn’t show up. On the other hand, my board got destroyed on my recent PE trip when the leash string broke and the board took a trip to some nasty rocks…but that is a different story and not the least of the factors causing me to get interested in making a kevlar board.
No doubt, someday by board will get wrecked or lost in transit.
How about flat out stolen boards! I was checking in the rental car while my wife checked in the luggage. When the board never showed I asked my wife what happened at check-in. She said the guy at the counter opened the door behind the desk and put it in there! When I contacted Hawaian Airlines, the said no help without a reciept! I had my buddy at the shop write me up a replacement, and then 6 months later I get a check for less. Contacted Hawaian again to find out why, they said the reduction was for depreciation. The Board was only a week old!
If you fly Air Tahiti Nui they “Tax” your boards. A friend’s boards never showed up in Tahiti. At the end of his trip another employee took my friend to some guys house where the boards were. They had been riding them all week. The Tahitians figured all was square because they gave them back when the guy was going home!
This is why I try not to travel with my boards anymore.
If at all possible I will pick up a board or two at destination and have as much fun as possible surfing them. When the trip is over I can almost always sell them - if not back to the shop where I bought them, to other surfers playing the same game as me.
I know this is not possible at all destinations and not everybody is willing to show up and ride what is available, but it works for me.
For all of the UK surfers (rightly) pissed off at BA for banning surfboards, I actually fly for them and have been trying to get this reversed from the inside. Whatever the popular rumor may be, the reason the airline has refused all surfboards is due to all of the damage claims. I thought this was bollocks until I took a little straw poll of the surf community here and found out that many of the island’s surfers have put claims in, many times unwarranted.
I still think that BA should take our surfboards if we sign a waiver (and this is what I’m trying to get them to do) but the management have more pressing things on their minds at the moment than our boards, what with the financial world collapsing and all.
Off to Fistral with a 6’2" snowboard? Not even excess baggage. Something to think about.
Surfboards messed up and guitars smashed from air travel is a regular problem, but that’s less than $2000.
I’ve been a professional cameraman on Oahu for over 30 years. The cameras I use cost about $30,000, and the ones I rent are equal to about a year’s take home pay. We used to hand carry our film and then video cameras when ever we needed to fly interisland.
Several years ago Aloha started giving me a lot of flack because the camera bag was larger than their allowed carry on. So we started using flight cases for a while, but then they weren’t shipping the cases on the same flight I was on, which I thought was never supposed to happen with the new era of terrorism. I only hand carry now, because I can’t afford to get to my destination and find that the camera didn’t make it.
I have seen baggage handlers throw baggage instead of just placing it onto the ramps and carts more times than I want to. I never could understand what goes through their minds when they know people are on the other side of the window watching. They still fling the bags into the air, or slam them down, when all they have to do is slide them over. If you want to nail them, take a small video camera on your next flight and shoot video of the handlers. Or ask everyone you know to do the same.
Flew Singapore Airlines recently to the Maldives. I took 2 long boards with a combined weight of 27kgs. No problems, my boards were fine. My mate on the other hand took 3 short boards together in a travel bag and the airline managed to break all 3 (including a “tufflite”) Luckily it was on the flight back to Sydney.
Considering what has become Surfing these days, I think the best way to obtain anything from airlines is to unite and fight back.
As we all leave in some part of the world, a private fight is probably useless. But as a whole, it’s so much money they will listen, no doubt about that.
Maybe something could be done by a international and/or historical foundation or association or firm (Surf Rider Foundation ? National Surf Federations ?). I don’t know, but if anybody with influence is reading, it is time to get back some rights :
why are we paying if the total weight of our luggage (including surfboards) is authorized ? Why aren’t golfers, snowboarders or kite surfers not paying ? A proper lawyer would defend surfers claiming it is a constitutional right for every one to be treated the same.
why are surfboard treated so badly, this is the responsability of the airlines to put all their influence on airports for this service to be provided well. It’s not only for surfboard, the handlers must be really board because it is a game for them to throw everything around, nothing more.
Finally, some heavy duty hard board bags should be available too … same price would be logical, it’s not really complicated.
They don’t injure dogs travelling in plastic boxes right ?
here is my beef, if I am paying 100 bucks EACH WAY to fly my board, the board should get treated like a baby. If I am not being charged for the board, then a little damage wouldn’t be a problem.