Sending horns overseas

Tubaguyjoe · Post by **Tubaguyjoe** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 2:11 am

So im going to be studying in Germany in the Fall and im looking to get my ticket pretty soon. I found the cheapest ticket to be through Student Universe, because im a student I get a discount. The ticket will end up being about $500 dollars. Anyways, I called Delta(the company with the cheapest flight) and I asked them about oversize baggage and such(2 horns). They told me I would need to pay the fee of $110x3 for oversize and overweight baggage. Thats almost as much as my seat for only 1 tuba! I was wondering if you guys might be able to help me...should I ship them UPS or Fed Ex or something. Should I just pay that fee. What do you guys do when you have to fly overseas with both a CC and an F tuba? Thanks in advance for your input. -Joe

joshwirt · Post by **joshwirt** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 9:42 am

Well, Joe....welcome to the reality of studying overseas! When I moved to the UK last Sept, I looked at various shipping options. I ended up finding a deal where I could ship @ $2.00/lb with a minimum of 200 lbs. Luckily enough, a friend of mine was also moving here so we split the cost. I will warn you....don't bring things you don't need, because it's A LOT more expensive to get things back to the US!!!

As for the tubas, I checked my CC and F as baggage and got slapped with the fees ($110X2) coming over....small price to pay to have them in my hands when I landed. But BMI is more relaxed going back, so there are no fees for them to fly from the UK. I'm bringing back an EEb and it's going to cost me about $105.....there's no place here that'll ship for that cheap!

Best of luck to you and safe travels!

Josh Wirt

TubaSteve · Post by **TubaSteve** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 9:55 am

Good question! The only time I flew overseas with my tuba, we ended up taking a fibreglass sousa as I was not comfortable taking the school's MW-25 and the other brass horns. This was a long time ago, 1977, but we did have to pay the airline extra freight for them. (We were only allowed 40lbs per person for our personal items so I ended up packing my sousa case with several of my personal items and my uniform. When they decided to charge us for the freight on the horn, naturally they decided to weigh my horn and multiply it by 4 for the freight bill. I of course never fessed up that my case was "stocked", but the band did end up paying for a little extra cartage for my underwear! ) More recently, but several years ago, (5) my friend had his MW-25 pretty well mangled by United on an overseas flight so I think that my concerns for checking it as baggage were well founded. I can still remember on our 1977 trip sitting in the DC-10 and watching the bagage guys tossing french horns and other smaller cased instruments from the cargo hold down into the carts 20 feet below. My friend had to have his Meinl overhauled after his flight on United. I would think that a freight service would be more responsible and handle your horn more carefully than an airline that often seems to thrive on baggage abuse.

Dylan King · Post by **Dylan King** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 5:29 pm

I'd buy an extra seat. More peanuts.

tuba_bloke · Post by **tuba_bloke** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:20 pm

I have had the same questions when flying with my PT6 & PT15 between Australia and USA. From my experience I would pretend like flying with 2 tubas is normal! If you ship with Fedex or UPS it will also cost just as much as your seat per horn.
The probablem with Fedex/UPS is they charge for the space that your horn takes up. For example I tried to send my PT6 via Fedex, it only weighs 65lbs, but apparently it takes up 200lbs of Air freight space. So you are charged for 200 instead on 65.
Try your luck, but have your credit card ready...you never know it just might be your lucky day.