boards on british airways

[pile]

anyone ever run into any issues carrying boards (no trucks attached) onto a british airways flight? i've called their customer service hotline, and the woman could barely speak english, and didn't know what a skateboard was. i settled on letting her think it was a snowboard, and she said as long as it was 72 inches in length or smaller it was cool to carry on. i'm planning on carrying five boards on, i'll probably place them in some sort of plastic bag to keep em from sliding around. any info from anyone who has flown with them would be appreciated, thanks!

[N.L.]

done it many times. mainly between london and seattle and london and LAX. never had a problem.

always a good idea to stash your wheels and trucks in your back and carry your deck...

[skate_spbr]

don't know about british airways, but there's a topic discussing this about low-cost airlines http://www.slapmagazine.com/component/option,com_jfusion/Itemid,4/index.php?topic=88699.0

[pile]

so i carried 5 decks in a plastic bag onto both of my flights, no problems at all.

[oyolar]

I got my board confiscated at Heathrow when taking British Airways from Chicago to Amsterdam.  No one at BA said shit when I brought it as carry-on for the eight hour flight from Chicago to London but they wouldn't let me take it onto the 45 minute BA flight from London to Amsterdam.  When I asked if I could check it and pay the fees, they told me I would have to buy a new piece of luggage from one of the airport shops in order to check it but that they couldn't guarantee that it would still be at security by the time I got back because they have the right to dispose of it whenever they see fit once I leave the security area because then it's abandoned or whatever.  I just let them take it because I was going to be late for my flight because Heathrow is a hellhole that takes forever to navigate.

Basically, Heathrow fucking sucks and I hate going through that airport and British Airways staff have ridiculously inconsistent training.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and they specifically told me that British Airways has rules against having skateboards as carry-ons so it wasn't just Heathrow security.

[brycickle]

That's almost the exact same horror story that I had flying through Heathrow. I was headed to Madrid on an Iberian flight. I would like to actually go to England sometime, but I think I'll fly into anywhere but Heathrow.

And I got fucked over by Al Italia the year before.

[pile]

I got my board confiscated at Heathrow when taking British Airways from Chicago to Amsterdam.  No one at BA said shit when I brought it as carry-on for the eight hour flight from Chicago to London but they wouldn't let me take it onto the 45 minute BA flight from London to Amsterdam.  When I asked if I could check it and pay the fees, they told me I would have to buy a new piece of luggage from one of the airport shops in order to check it but that they couldn't guarantee that it would still be at security by the time I got back because they have the right to dispose of it whenever they see fit once I leave the security area because then it's abandoned or whatever.  I just let them take it because I was going to be late for my flight because Heathrow is a hellhole that takes forever to navigate.

Basically, Heathrow fucking sucks and I hate going through that airport and British Airways staff have ridiculously inconsistent training.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and they specifically told me that British Airways has rules against having skateboards as carry-ons so it wasn't just Heathrow security.

was your board set up? i was just carrying decks on.

[voyagertill130]

London > Barcelona - was able to bring my board with me on flight. I checked my actual suitcase and just had a backpack. Guy was nice at the desk and asked security/gate to double check but yeah no problem; 8.5 32"

Terminal 3 if that's useful

[TheLurper]

The Euro version of TSA officially says no skateboards as carry-on items, while our TSA (along with Canada), says skateboards are just fine as carry-on items. Spirit and Delta have rules against boards as carry-ons (but I don't think Delta enforces shit like this the same way Spirit does). I've come to hate flying and I don't want to the extra hassle of arguing with security, so I just check my board in Europe, but I bring it as a carry-on item in the USA/CAN.

Security in Europe often feels worse than security in the USA. I've recently had problems getting super8 film through security in Europe. In the States security is usually cool and just swabs the camera and the film down, but the Euro security agents have fits if you request a hand-check and force the undeveloped film through the x-ray. On my last Euro trip the Portuguese security told me I needed a "special document" to get a hand-check on undeveloped film and the Greek security agents forced me to waste 35 feet of film so they could take the film out of the camera (after they x-rayed it).