Accounts of Flying with Firearms

Accounts of Flying with Firearms
How have specific airlines and airports treated people who have flown with firearms?

Deviant Ollam

Have you traveled by air with firearms? I would love to hear, in detail, how it went for you. If you'd like to tell me about it, please just send an email to deviant@deviating.net and i'm more than happy to publish your account here. All i ask is that you follow the format of the questionnaire below when summarizing the details.

Air Travel Accounts
The follow overviews give you a basic rundown of people's experience flying with firearms on different carriers via different airports. Air carriers should, in my opinion, take responsibility for errors that their employees make and that the TSA should work much harder to standardize airport operations and train their staff in the proper handling of firearm policies and procedures. Click any of the passenger names below to read their full story...

Deviant Ollam Some wonderful help from Ted at the US Air counter in Philadelphia.	PHL --> RDU 2012-05-11		RDU --> PHL 2012-05-13

Deviant Ollam Misinformed United staff in Minneapolis/St Paul gave me a really hard time.	PHL --> ORD --> MSP 2012-05-07		MSP --> ORD --> PHL 2012-05-09

Deviant Ollam PHL and ATL... two airports i know very well. No surprises on this trip.	PHL --> ATL 2012-04-20		ATL --> PHL 2012-04-22

RD An outbound journey goes smooth as silk, The return leg is closer to sandpaper, sadly.	RNO --> SAN 2012-03-23		SAN --> RNO 2012-03-25

Deviant Ollam To and From Spokane, WA... no major issues but minor annoyances each way.	PHL --> PHX --> GEG 2012-03-11		GEG --> PHX --> PHL 2012-03-15

Keith Someone who found my site, took some notes from my lecture, and tried this with great ease and success.	CLT --> DFW 2012-02-28		DFW --> CLT 2012-03-01

Deviant Ollam In and out of Silicon Valley in the blink of an eye, but San Jose is a rather annoying airport.	PHL --> PHX --> SJC 2012-01-31		SJC --> PHX --> PHL 2012-02-03

Deviant Ollam I've come to love how the TSA does things in Chicago.	ORD --> PHL 2011-12-18

Deviant Ollam Priority status doesn't mean much in Los Angeles, unfortunately.	LAX --> ORD 2011-12-11

Deviant Ollam Smooth sailing in and out of Kentucky, including disarming right at the counter.	ORD --> CLT --> LEX 2011-12-08		LEX --> CLT --> LAX 2011-12-09

Vlad Extreme unprofessionalism and law-breaking by Delta staff and the TSA in Detroit	DTW --> PHL 2011-12-02

Deviant Ollam An experiment shows just how poor "TSA Compliant" cases really are	PHL --> ORD 2011-11-21

Foghorn A first-time firearm-flyer learns there's no real reason to be nervous, even in Washington, D.C.	DCA --> SDF 2011-10-13		SDF--> DCA 2011-10-16

GRS Delta gives extra protection to firearms, at least out of Cincinnati.	CVG --> DTW --> ABE 2011-10-05		ABE --> DTW --> CVG 2011-10-07

Deviant Ollam To Michigan and back in 24 hours. No trouble, easy flying, guns welcome.	PHL --> DTW 2011-09-15		GRR --> MKE --> LGA 2011-09-16

Deviant Ollam Black Hat, BSides, DEFCON... our usual summer ritual, and the trip with loads of guns was pretty smooth.	PHL --> LAS 2011-07-28		LAS--> PHL 2011-08-08

Deviant Ollam A major hassle in Chicago makes me reconsider US Air as my preferred carrier.	PHL --> ORD 2001-06-29		ORD --> PHL 2011-07-04

Jphn P A hassle free experience on Delta	MCI --> ATL 2011-06-29		ATL--> MTL 2011-07-04

Deviant Ollam A quick and simple flight to Minnesota.	PHL --> MSP 2011-03-30		MSP --> PHL 2011-04-08

Deviant Ollam Lots of trouble transporting ammo on some flights to and from Illinois. The tips in this account can really save you trouble if you use them to plan ahead!	PHL --> ORD 2011-03-30		ORD --> PHL --> FRA --> WAW 2011-04-08

Deviant Ollam Loads of annoyances on my way home from Florida, but in the end it all worked out.	JAX--> CTL --> PHL 2011-03-23

Deviant Ollam Some confusion in Atlanta, but it all worked out.	ATL --> CTL --> JAX 2011-03-20

Deviant Ollam Perhaps the fastest and most pleasant check-in i've ever had. Naturally it was in PHL.	PHL --> ATL 2011-03-18

Mr. Fahrenheit A fun tale of super simple homebrew luggage, in order to comply with the hard-sided requirement without spending a whole lot.	SAT --> IAH --> RSW 2011-03-11		RSW --> IAH --> SAT 2011-03-13

Deviant & Babak My business partner and fellow TOOOL Boardmember got to fly with firearms with me on our way out to Washington	PHL --> SEA 2011-02-21		SEA --> PHL 2011-02-24

Wolf Wings OK on the firearms, but stuck using the horrible AIT scanner machine	MCI --> SAN 2011-01-09		SFO --> MCI 2011-01-17

Pat Taking extra caution due to Illinois' awful gun laws, everytrhing went well on this jaunt through the Land of Lincoln	DFW --> ORD --> PIA 2011-01-04		PIA --> ORD --> DFW 2011-01-08

Deviant Ollam My first time having bags opened in Philly and it did not make me happy. Detroit was as miserable an experience as ever.	PHL--> ORD 2010-10-13		DTW--> PHL 2010-10-19

Wolf Wings An economical and practical means of travel... with luggage by Rubbermaid and a simple organe flare gun.	MCI --> DEN --> LAX 2010-10-11		LAX --> DEN --> MCI 2010-10-13

Adam No trouble with the firearms, but a locked guitar case got some hassle.	MCO --> LAX 2010-10-01		LAX --> MCO 2010-10-04

Older Entries

Air Travel Ratings
If you don't have the time or the desire to read the full text of someone's account of air travel, you can simply refer to the rating shown at the conclusion of each portion of that person's journey. The following criteria are used in assigning these ratings...

Four Stars	check-in - no hassle, no delay screening - in full view, lock and unlock yourself luggage - all on time and intact
Three Stars	check-in - some delay or mild hassle screening - somewhat obscured, locking and unlocking yourself or it's done directly in front of you luggage - all on time and intact
Two Stars	check-in - major delay or major hassle screening - in a room or area that you could not enter and could barely observe luggage - luggage opened non-destructively
One Star	check-in - flight missed or passenger delayed from flying, properly packed items denied as luggage screening - luggage unlocked and opened totally in another area fully removed from you luggage - destructive entry into luggage and/or tampering with firearms
Zero Stars	This is a special category for outright theft, loss, or damage of firearms during air travel
half-star results are possible... naturally, they involve partial or mitigated problems that somehow fall in-between the above categories

Firearm Air Travel Questionnaire

Have you traveled by air with firearms? We would love to hear, in detail, how it went for you. If you'd like to tell us about it, please just send an email to deviant [åt] deviating [döt] net* and we're more than happy to publish your account here. All we ask is that you follow the format of this questionnaire when summarizing the details for us.

* address obfuscated to prevent spam. PGP key on major keyservers if you wish to secure your traffic.

Background Details

1. Your Name - We can accept nicknames, initials, or just your first name if you'd like to remain a bit private.

2. Your Itinerary - This is your booked route and planned travel dates when you arrived at the airport, whether a simple round-trip or some other combination of stops. Mention of delays or re-routings can be done later when discussing specific legs of your journey. Airport codes are more helpful than city names (and are more respectful of your privacy... we only care about air travel, not where you spent the 4th of July or which family you visited for Thanksgiving.) Please feel free to specify any scheduled layovers, despite the fact that these typically do not affect firearm-related travel.

3. Your Airline(s) - On which carrier(s) was your flight booked? Please feel free to mention any reasons why you chose these airlines, as well as any partnering or "dual-carrier" flights that happened (that is so common these days, we understand it's difficult to keep track)

4. Luggage and Locks - What brand (or what style) of luggage did you use when flying with firearms? How were they packed? In what manner were they secured? (We are especially interested in what brand or style of locks you used.)

Outbound Departure Experience

5. Airline Check-In Staff - From the time you stepped from your airport transportation (car, cab, shuttle, train, etc) to the moment you received your boarding pass, how were you treated? How did the airline staff (both ticketing agents as well as any additional people like baggage staffers) react when you declared your firearms? Did they seem accustomed to this? Did they follow all the rules? Of particular interest to us...

i. Locked Bags - Did the check-in staff make any criticisms of your desire to lock your checked bag(s)? Did they inform you that you had done anything incorrectly? Did you have to escalate the matter to a supervisor, etc?

ii. Firearms Indication - Did the check-in staff attempt to mark your luggage in any way due to the presence of firearms? That would include... affixing the "declaration" tag to the outside, writing on the printed luggage tag, the computer marking the printed tag with special characters (a row of "F" characters has been reported in the past), or (we realize this is hard to discern without asking outright... something we encourage) any special indicator on your passenger record in their booking system.

6. Secondary Screening Area - Was there a secondary area for your checked bags? How far was it / what was the experience of getting your bags there? Our key interest... Were you able to observe your luggage during screening (was it right in front of you on a table, behind a rope or low partition designed to keep people back, or behind a wall/in another room such that you could not observe your bag at all during screening)?

7. Departure TSA Screeners - How available were TSA screeners when you arrived (did you have to wait)? Was the TSA familiar with proper policy and law concerning air travel with firearms or did they give you any attitude or cause difficulty? To the best of your knowledge, what techniques were used in screening your bag (x-ray, explosive residue test, etc.) Our key interest... Did the bag screeners have to open your luggage for any reason and, if so, were you (not the screeners), the one who performed the unlocking and subsequent re-locking?

The Flight(s) Out

8. Flight Experience - Strictly from a firearms perspective, did anything of note happen from the time that you left your bags at the departing airport until you claimed them again at your ultimate destination? (We are not asking about your experience at passenger screening, changes to seat assignments, or how bad the in-flight movie was... but if something happened requiring you to speak to the gate agent about your luggage or if an announcement was made paging you back to speak with the TSA again, we'd surely be interested.)

Destination Arrival Experience

9. Baggage Arrival and Condition - This is fairly straightforward... Did your luggage arrive on-time? Was it in good condition (we aren't asking about normal wear and tear... we want to know if it was tampered with in any way)? Our key interest... Were your firearm-bearing items still locked and were there any signs that someone had opened or accessed them in any way?

Homebound Departure Experience

10. Airline Check-In Staff - Same as above... did the airline staff seem to know the rules and treat you with respect or did they show confusion, have a bad attitude, or present difficulty? Again, our primary interest is...

i. Locked Bags - Were you able to lock your bags properly without difficulty?

ii. Firearms Indication - Did anyone attempt to mark any of your bags marked on the outside in any way?

11. Secondary Screening Area - Please describe the secondary screening area, if it was part of your process, specifically mentioning how well you could observe your bag(s) any time they were being opened.

12. Departure TSA Screeners - Did screeners at this airport have to open any of your luggage for any reason and, if so, were you the one who performed any unlocking and subsequent re-locking?

The Return Flight(s)

13. Flight Experience - Anything worth reporting from a firearms perspective, say it here. Again, we're not asking about the dismal portions and exorbitant price of your in-flight "meal" or the cleanliness of the airplane's lavatories.

Return Arrival Experience

14. Baggage Arrival and Condition - Did your luggage arrive on-time? Were your firearm-bearing items still locked and were there any signs that someone had opened or accessed them in any way?

Final Details

15. Post-Flight Matters - If your story as recounted to us involved damage to luggage, cut locks, loss or theft, or incompetence/rudeness so extreme as to necessitate contacting superiors or customer service departments (and you have our sympathies if that was the case) please feel free to let us know how any follow-up was/is being handled. Did anyone admit that they (or their staff) were in the wrong? Were you compensated? Have you received any satisfaction after a wrongdoing? You can include this now or follow-up with us later and we'd be happy to update your entry in our list of air travel accounts.

One Last Note... Contact Preferences - As a matter of policy, we do not publish your email address anywhere on this web page. However, we will on occasion receive email from 3rd parties asking if they can follow-up with a particular traveler who has published an account here. We will never divulge or give out your email, even in such instances, but we will sometimes pass along that 3rd party's inquiry and contact details to you privately. If you already get enough email and do not wish us to do so, please let us know so we don't bother you.