Hallgeir Gravråk
AH veteran
Anyone who has flown with a firearm recently knows what a hassle it can be. In addition to governmental restrictions, airlines can create their own set of rules pertaining to guns, from complete prohibition to offering an additional checked baggage allowance, classifying firearms cases as “sporting” equipment. South African Airways is a major carrier for the Africa market, but their in-house rules defy both logic and standard airline practices meaning the traveling hunter is very likely to lose his or her ammunition.
Every air carrier that allows firearms as checked baggage requires ammunition be carried in a separate-from-the-gun, hard-sided, locked container…every carrier that is but South African Airways. If connecting from the SAA hub in Johannesburg, be it a domestic or international connection, SAA will remove ammunition from the passenger’s hard-sided, locked, non-gun case and placed in a plastic bag. Yes, a plastic bag.
Though the SAA plastic bag is of some heft and my own bag-o-bullets only tore on one of our connecting flights, the issue is not even the obvious lack of security of the container. The issue is SAA’s refusal to conform to well-reasoned and established standards of the rest of the airline world, which leave traveling hunters and shooters in an impossible situation.
Unless you are based in a hub city like Atlanta, New York, Washington D.C. or others, international travel almost always requires a connecting flight. Rather than collect and recheck bags at every connection along the way, the airlines have created this wonderful system of checking bags through to the passenger’s final destination, meaning once luggage is dropped off in Dallas, Denver or Detroit, said bags should appear on the carousel upon arrival at Johannesburg, Jacksonville, or Jalalabad. (well, perhaps not Jalalabad) Unless you are connecting to a different airline to travel on to another destination in Africa, the problem is not traveling to Africa. The problem arises most often on the return trip.
To be clear, passengers flying only on South African Airways should have no issues, unless of course the hunter/passenger’s plastic bullet bag breaks in transit. The real issue is when initiating a flight with SAA that connects to another airline, such as Air Namibia, Air Zimbabwe, LAM, or Delta. Here are two real-life scenarios that occurred on our last Africa trip:
Traveling from East London to Johannesburg on SAA, we were scheduled to connect on Air Namibia in Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia. We had to collect our gun cases and separately-bagged ammunition at JNB and recheck with Air Namibia. The firearms were no problem, but as Air Namibia would not accept a plastic bag of bullets as checked baggage, we had no choice but to re-pack our gear and convert a carryon to a checked bag to transport our ammunition. This may not seem like much of a problem to some, but as we were traveling with a great deal of delicate camera gear, firearms, and a one-year old baby, it was a difficult trick to pull off…and that was the easy leg.
Our return journey to the US from Windhoek Namibia on SAA is where the ridiculous nature of the airline’s policy was on full display. As expected by now, the ticket counter agent insisted on putting our ammunition in plastic bags. Then things became inexplicable. Rather than allowing the option of collecting and rechecking our ammunition into one of our locked, hard-sided cases as is required by our international carrier Delta, SAA required the plastic bag containing my bullets be checked through to Atlanta. Really? Sending unsecured ammunition on a flight to the United Sates? I can only imagine the laughter of the TSA and Delta baggage handlers as they threw my expensive boxes of .375 H&H into the “not suitable to fly” hopper, or whatever they do with clearly inappropriate packaging.
Why am I sharing this? My purpose is not to highlight the arrogance and/or ignorance of South African Airways corporate policies or try and dissuade you from choosing SAA as your air carrier. You can make that judgment for yourself. The reason I am sharing is to make you aware of this new issue SAA has recently created and the best way to avoid the problems we encountered.
Avoiding SAA is not the solution. They dominate the market in southern Africa and often they are the only carrier to many destinations. Flying SAA without other carrier connections should alleviate the issue, although I do not know how SAA deals with ammunition on their long-hauls to New York and Washington. But what if you prefer flying Delta, or can only get to Maun on Air Botswana? The answer to this and the integrity of the plastic bag issue are both resolved by taking along a small, hard-sided, lockable ammunition box.
Though it does add unnecessary weight in the checked bag, if South African Airways insists on removing bullets from checked baggage, at least they can be transported in a manner that complies with the rest of the international airline community. It is a simple fix, but problems are hard to fix if one does not know they exist. As of this writing, nowhere does SAA’s USA or South Africa website make any references to the need to remove ammunition from checked bags. I suppose it is such a new policy they have not had a chance to update their website?
Traveling the world with firearms is always a challenge but knowledge of the rules, no matter how nonsensical they are, is the first step towards insuring a problem-free experience. As they say, knowledge is power. If you have a friend contemplating a trip involving South African Airways, do him or her a favor and pass the knowledge along.
Every air carrier that allows firearms as checked baggage requires ammunition be carried in a separate-from-the-gun, hard-sided, locked container…every carrier that is but South African Airways. If connecting from the SAA hub in Johannesburg, be it a domestic or international connection, SAA will remove ammunition from the passenger’s hard-sided, locked, non-gun case and placed in a plastic bag. Yes, a plastic bag.
Though the SAA plastic bag is of some heft and my own bag-o-bullets only tore on one of our connecting flights, the issue is not even the obvious lack of security of the container. The issue is SAA’s refusal to conform to well-reasoned and established standards of the rest of the airline world, which leave traveling hunters and shooters in an impossible situation.
Unless you are based in a hub city like Atlanta, New York, Washington D.C. or others, international travel almost always requires a connecting flight. Rather than collect and recheck bags at every connection along the way, the airlines have created this wonderful system of checking bags through to the passenger’s final destination, meaning once luggage is dropped off in Dallas, Denver or Detroit, said bags should appear on the carousel upon arrival at Johannesburg, Jacksonville, or Jalalabad. (well, perhaps not Jalalabad) Unless you are connecting to a different airline to travel on to another destination in Africa, the problem is not traveling to Africa. The problem arises most often on the return trip.
To be clear, passengers flying only on South African Airways should have no issues, unless of course the hunter/passenger’s plastic bullet bag breaks in transit. The real issue is when initiating a flight with SAA that connects to another airline, such as Air Namibia, Air Zimbabwe, LAM, or Delta. Here are two real-life scenarios that occurred on our last Africa trip:
Traveling from East London to Johannesburg on SAA, we were scheduled to connect on Air Namibia in Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia. We had to collect our gun cases and separately-bagged ammunition at JNB and recheck with Air Namibia. The firearms were no problem, but as Air Namibia would not accept a plastic bag of bullets as checked baggage, we had no choice but to re-pack our gear and convert a carryon to a checked bag to transport our ammunition. This may not seem like much of a problem to some, but as we were traveling with a great deal of delicate camera gear, firearms, and a one-year old baby, it was a difficult trick to pull off…and that was the easy leg.
Our return journey to the US from Windhoek Namibia on SAA is where the ridiculous nature of the airline’s policy was on full display. As expected by now, the ticket counter agent insisted on putting our ammunition in plastic bags. Then things became inexplicable. Rather than allowing the option of collecting and rechecking our ammunition into one of our locked, hard-sided cases as is required by our international carrier Delta, SAA required the plastic bag containing my bullets be checked through to Atlanta. Really? Sending unsecured ammunition on a flight to the United Sates? I can only imagine the laughter of the TSA and Delta baggage handlers as they threw my expensive boxes of .375 H&H into the “not suitable to fly” hopper, or whatever they do with clearly inappropriate packaging.
Why am I sharing this? My purpose is not to highlight the arrogance and/or ignorance of South African Airways corporate policies or try and dissuade you from choosing SAA as your air carrier. You can make that judgment for yourself. The reason I am sharing is to make you aware of this new issue SAA has recently created and the best way to avoid the problems we encountered.
Avoiding SAA is not the solution. They dominate the market in southern Africa and often they are the only carrier to many destinations. Flying SAA without other carrier connections should alleviate the issue, although I do not know how SAA deals with ammunition on their long-hauls to New York and Washington. But what if you prefer flying Delta, or can only get to Maun on Air Botswana? The answer to this and the integrity of the plastic bag issue are both resolved by taking along a small, hard-sided, lockable ammunition box.
Though it does add unnecessary weight in the checked bag, if South African Airways insists on removing bullets from checked baggage, at least they can be transported in a manner that complies with the rest of the international airline community. It is a simple fix, but problems are hard to fix if one does not know they exist. As of this writing, nowhere does SAA’s USA or South Africa website make any references to the need to remove ammunition from checked bags. I suppose it is such a new policy they have not had a chance to update their website?
Traveling the world with firearms is always a challenge but knowledge of the rules, no matter how nonsensical they are, is the first step towards insuring a problem-free experience. As they say, knowledge is power. If you have a friend contemplating a trip involving South African Airways, do him or her a favor and pass the knowledge along.