Appologize if its a repost...musicians denied boarding

Absolutely, not arguing with anything you've said.

Just to be clear:

My point is that there are folks within our ranks that have failed to take the job seriously enough, much less even view themselves as leaders. Additionally, they are socially inept and have poor inter-personal communication skills and even worse organizational communication skills. All together, they have very little leadership traits or qualities.
 
I didn't understand this situation in the least. I almost alway bring my violin with me on trips- and have had many passengers with instruments. If it can fit in an overhead, or the closet, or underneath the seat, we'll find a volunteer to gate check their bag. Or I took it in the cockpit, regardless what our EWR rules were. The musician's union has a letter of agreement with the airlines.
 
I didn't understand this situation in the least. I almost alway bring my violin with me on trips- and have had many passengers with instruments. If it can fit in an overhead, or the closet, or underneath the seat, we'll find a volunteer to gate check their bag. Or I took it in the cockpit, regardless what our EWR rules were. The musician's union has a letter of agreement with the airlines.

Me personally I wouldn't ask another, different paying passenger to check their bag to allow someone else's carry-on, on. I would check my own probably but you are, at that point, going way above and beyond the call of duty.

Not allowed to bring any passenger luggage into the cockpit. I would never do that.

PSA has always been particularly nazi-ish with their carry-on policies BUT that is the company policy and the employees are tasked with enforcing it. I'm not saying you can't be accommodating but IMO it's not your job to bend the rules it's your job to see that they are followed.
 
Th
Absolutely, not arguing with anything you've said.

Just to be clear:

My point is that there are folks within our ranks that have failed to take the job seriously enough, much less even view themselves as leaders. Additionally, they are socially inept and have poor inter-personal communication skills and even worse organizational communication skills. All together, they have very little leadership traits or qualities.
You're probably right, and that's disappointing considering what a HUGE role they play in determing if any given event or situation turns out good or bad. It is important to remember to teach by example and don't be afraid to say: "Hey, I think that could of been handled a little better."
Just to be clear: None of my words were directed toward you personally.....you already have the skillz.... :)
 
I have a good music instrument story. Unrelated, kinda but a funny story. When I used to tour with the old band, we took a flight from LAS to MCO on a Song 757 to start a 5 week East Coast/Midwest/South tour. The members of the band decided they didnt want to use the gear of the band we were touring with so they brought all theyre stuff, minus their guitar cabinets. Yup, an entire drum set, hardware, four guitars, one bass guitar, two guitar amp heads and a bass head that weighed 80 pounds. Add that in with our merch container (60 lbs) All of the gear was in road cases which weigh an additional 30 lbs, give or take. It costs about $300 to check all of it which at the time was a bargain.

It was a red eye flight so we arrive in MCO at 0700, everyone is tired. All the pax looked grumpy, but happy to be in Orlando for some Disney fun I can only assume. We head down to baggage claim to get the crap. We wait and wait as the passenger's bags start rolling down the belt onto the carousel. Suddenly we hear loud thuds coming up the belt as we watched our equipment make its assault all the passenger's bags. One after an other, we watched the gear crush and smash bags and cardboard boxes. People were gasping and clearly pissed. They immediately look at us. Our tour manager had asked Delta in LAS if they could load our gear last so it would be off loaded first in order to not damage anyone elses stuff. They said they would try. It seems they werent able to. Anyway, we decided to stick around to make sure we didnt damage anyone's stuff and offered to pay for anything that may have been damaged.

Our last show was in Chicago then a flight from ORD to LAS. We made arrangements with the label to ship the heavy items back via Fed Ex. What a nightmare.
 
CaptBill said:
Th You're probably right, and that's disappointing considering what a HUGE role they play in determing if any given event or situation turns out good or bad. It is important to remember to teach by example and don't be afraid to say: "Hey, I think that could of been handled a little better." Just to be clear: None of my words were directed toward you personally.....you already have the skillz.... :)

Copy that Captain.

Same team.
 
Me personally I wouldn't ask another, different paying passenger to check their bag to allow someone else's carry-on, on. I would check my own probably but you are, at that point, going way above and beyond the call of duty.

Not allowed to bring any passenger luggage into the cockpit. I would never do that.

PSA has always been particularly nazi-ish with their carry-on policies BUT that is the company policy and the employees are tasked with enforcing it. I'm not saying you can't be accommodating but IMO it's not your job to bend the rules it's your job to see that they are followed.

You're exactly right of course. But I remember the day when Jim Sommerville brought his french horn on our EWR-BOS flight. I'll play a little favoritism for that Boston Symph musician! I'm sure everyone would be on the same page with me "bending" the rules there (and also the networking/job opportunities that came out of it!). There's a little bit of "looking the other way" that has to happen to prevent some seriously bad PR.
 
You're exactly right of course. But I remember the day when Jim Sommerville brought his french horn on our EWR-BOS flight. I'll play a little favoritism for that Boston Symph musician! I'm sure everyone would be on the same page with me "bending" the rules there (and also the networking/job opportunities that came out of it!). There's a little bit of "looking the other way" that has to happen to prevent some seriously bad PR.

I'd happily check any brass instrument if it were in a hard sided case.

Though I'll admit that I'm still bitter about the decade I spent trying to figure out how to make a French Horn not sound like a dying cow, and thus wouldn't care if one got trashed. Talk about a hard instrument to really figure out.
 
I'd happily check any brass instrument if it were in a hard sided case.

Though I'll admit that I'm still bitter about the decade I spent trying to figure out how to make a French Horn not sound like a dying cow, and thus wouldn't care if one got trashed. Talk about a hard instrument to really figure out.

That and the accordion. Very tough instrument to learn. The banjo is also pretty complex.
 
I'd happily check any brass instrument if it were in a hard sided case.

Though I'll admit that I'm still bitter about the decade I spent trying to figure out how to make a French Horn not sound like a dying cow, and thus wouldn't care if one got trashed. Talk about a hard instrument to really figure out.


I see an "office space" style movie about school band in the future!
 
I know most musicians would consider their instrument very personal, lol. The FAA, on the other hand...

And I treat my guitars like they're my children. Which is why they're in SKB cases when I travel with them. Let the rampers SHOOT the damn things at that point. If you're traveling a lot with a delicate instrument like a violin, even if you THINK it's going in the overhead, don't skimp on the case. I've seen how other people handle items in the overhead. Skimp on the case, and it'll cost you WAY more than that nice, hard shell case did in the long run.....
 
And I treat my guitars like they're my children. Which is why they're in SKB cases when I travel with them. Let the rampers SHOOT the damn things at that point. If you're traveling a lot with a delicate instrument like a violin, even if you THINK it's going in the overhead, don't skimp on the case. I've seen how other people handle items in the overhead. Skimp on the case, and it'll cost you WAY more than that nice, hard shell case did in the long run.....

Kell,
Thanks for SKB name-drop! That might be something for me to think about in the future.

A gig bag (for an electric) will normally fit in even an RJ bin, but I definitely would err on the side of caution when traveling with something so fragile.
 
Kell,
Thanks for SKB name-drop! That might be something for me to think about in the future.

A gig bag (for an electric) will normally fit in even an RJ bin, but I definitely would err on the side of caution when traveling with something so fragile.

See, even then, I'd hard case it. You never know if the bin space is gonna be gone when you get there or if they've got a policy that says you have to check EVERYTHING above a certain size.

Here's what I've got:

http://www.skbcases.com/music/products/proddetail.php?f=&id=234&o=&offset=&c=75&s=
 
This is what we traveled with as far as guitar cases go. You can drop these mofos off a 10 story building.

361020178_387.jpg
 
There is a place down the street from where I live in Albany that has bands come from all up and down the east coast. Every time I walk by as they are unloading their vans/trailers I'm shocked at how meticulous they are with their instruments. Don't get me wrong, there isn't a free square foot in there but they do have those same cases. They look to be battle tested for sure.
 
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