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Ski shipment - as airline baggage


billb

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My daughter and I are going to Coble's next month Thumbup.gif . We are flying, so I'm going to have to check our skis like baggage. I don't have a hard case or anything. I'm working on PVC for fin protection and my plan was a cardboard box and lots of bubblewrap around the soft cases that we have. I'm open to any ideas/tips you guys can offer.

Thanks,

Bill

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Last time I flew with my ski I put it in the padded case, got the box out my ski came in and filled the bottom and top (tip and tale) of box with bubblewrap for protection. Everything was great, although the airlines gave me a rash about checking it wanting to charge me extra.

Edited by krward
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I've travelled with my ski in it's padded bag without issue - 4 times now. These are supposed to be really nice for travel. I've found them locally, but you can find them online easily too.

Edit: Have a great time at Coble's! I really enjoyed my visit there last August.

Edited by weinrdog
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I think you'll be ok with the bubble wrap once you've hard protected the fin. Sporttube might be overkill for one trip, but it sure would work better than a box if it's crushed. Just got back from a week at Coble's with the kids. Love that place.

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A friend of mine flew her ski this spring and

american air broke the tip. It was wrapped in bubble wrap, cardboard, in its soft case, and then in a cardboard box. You can wrap a ski in all the shipping wrap you want, but if a strong force is applied to either end of the ski its gona break. She bought a hard case after that. The airline would not give her a dime for compensation either.

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A friend of mine flew her ski this spring and

american air broke the tip. It was wrapped in bubble wrap, cardboard, in its soft case, and then in a cardboard box. You can wrap a ski in all the shipping wrap you want, but if a strong force is applied to either end of the ski its gona break. She bought a hard case after that. The airline would not give her a dime for compensation either.

Mad.gif

We've been thinking of flying down to Orlando for a week at The Boarding School and to Acapulco for Rathbone's slalom school. I've been thinking recently about how to transport the board and ski via the airlines.

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I've travelled with my ski in it's padded bag without issue - 4 times now. These are supposed to be really nice for travel. I've found them locally, but you can find them online easily too.

Edit: Have a great time at Coble's! I really enjoyed my visit there last August.

If you do end up getting a Sportube, make sure you keep a close watch on it while security is putting it back together after doing their checks. Make sure they put it back together correctly. You wouldn't think that you would have to do that, but if you don't...

Last winter my wife and I took our snow ski's up to Breckenridge and flew them in a sportube. Well, the TSA did not put the cable tie (that I provided)back through both holes. (The bottom half, and the top half of the case go together and a cable tie loops through the two to keep it closed) So when our skis came out at baggage they were in the bottom half of the case, but the top half came out seperately. So the top half of the skis were completely unprotected, bases out. Of course I was fairly ticked. If there are going to be scratches and gouges in my skis, I guess at least I'd like to put them there by scraping some rocks on a huge incline. At any rate, watch the TSA. Help them if you can. DO NOT TOUCH THE CASE however. You'll be shot.

Aside from that I second that the sportubes are awesome. I've had one for years and they are IMO the ultimate protection, other than the above incident of course.

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I used a sportube when my wife and I went to Coble's in April. I was able to fit 2 slalom skis and a trick ski in there. I think that they are worth the money for a bit of extra piece of mind when travelling.

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You might want to consider mailing the ski to yourself at ski school. I did this for my last trip to Bennetts and it worked out just fine. It's about 40 bucks to mail the ski, but for me it was worth it not to have the hassle of dragging the ski through the airport and I figured UPS might be easier on it than the airlines (although it's probably a crapshoot). Just an idea.

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Believe it or not, I managed to carry on my ski on a trip. The flight was not full, it was a bit tricky sliding the ski in to the overhead, but I did take off the fin and bindings and just carry the ski on the airplane. As a frequent traveller, I have a pretty good handle at using the overheads, and in this case I went ahead and checked my normal carry on bag that had my clothes and the rest of the stuff in it. I slid the ski on it's side and pushed it to the back and helped the other passengers put their bags in front of the ski. Needless to say, when I walked on board, the crew did a double take at the ski and were pretty surprised when I actually slid the ski in the overhead. You have to make sure the overhead is a long open style and not the individual bins.

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Well, I managed to pick up a SporTube for $125 shipped from Amazon Rockon.gif . It's scheduled to arrive at my house today. I hope to need it again in the future, because God knows my skiing technique will need more than one round at school to fix! Also, if anything did get damaged, it'd cost me a lot more than $125 to replace/fix it. Mailing my ski isn't an option because I fly out on the day after a local tourney. Thanks for the info, guys. It helped me make my decision.

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You might want to consider mailing the ski to yourself at ski school. I did this for my last trip to Bennetts and it worked out just fine. It's about 40 bucks to mail the ski, but for me it was worth it not to have the hassle of dragging the ski through the airport and I figured UPS might be easier on it than the airlines (although it's probably a crapshoot). Just an idea.

Not sure about UPS being any easier than the airlines. There is a lot of automation in their back rooms and the machines don't much care if something is labeled fragile, especially if it is an odd shaped package such as a ski. Plus, the machines are really looking for rectangular sized boxes where the length, height and width dimensions are similar, clearly not the case for a ski. The truck guys might be better but never a guarantee.

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