Southwest Airlines - Excellent handling of firearm travel

[Nick1972]

Thank you Southwest!!

After reading many posts on how flying with firearms could be a disaster I was quiet nervous having never flown with firarms before.

Tampa Florida (TPA) - I arrived 2 hours early (just in case the stories were true), with a 1 and 3 year old (boy and girl - its all in the details! lol), 2 car seats, 2 suitcases, and my Plano case (2 latch locks and 2 combination locks). We walked up to ticketing to get boarding passes and declared my firearms, after filling out the firearm declaration card (DC), I was asked to open the case so they could look and place DC inside. Once that was done, all my other luggage (except the Plano case) was loaded on the belt behind the counter, and we (and my case) were escorted by "Duke" to the security screening area in which my case was placed on a different belt, with nothing further being said. 2 1/2 hours later we arrived in Manchester NH (MHT) with all bags as hoped. Leaving MHT was just as easy as the arrival, except my case was loaded onto the same belt as all other luggage. My arrival in TPA was just as easy as the departure.

The Southwest crew in my departing and arriving airports were fantastic - THANK YOU :smile: again, Southwest!!

Nick P

 

[sandetl]

I have flown with guns many times and never had a problem except one time I was called back to the security area to open my locked gun case because it was new and I had left the paperwork and booklet in the case. So they had me remove it and that was all I needed to do. But I had bought that gun on the trip and didn't think about papers in the case being a problem. I guess they were never in my other cases before but I really hadn't noticed. Or the rules had changed, not sure.

 

[mojoman]

Awesome to hear that your fly went well, I too fly with my weapon with them and I can truly say that my went well also, in a matter of fact it save me extra fines when I fly from WA. to N.C. Leaving N.C. I was ten lbs over my limit I told them that I had a weapon or declare a weapon she told me to wait for TSA and don't put my luggage on the be weight, So they came and I went with the TSA agency. To show you how much they would have charge me my wife was only 1 lbs over so since it was so little we told the lady that we will pay, so she told us that that will be $100 dollars, for 1 lbs over give me a break. So yeah it save me a bunch of money by declaring my weapon to the lady at the front desk.

 

[NavyLCDR]

I have flown with guns many times and never had a problem except one time I was called back to the security area to open my locked gun case because it was new and I had left the paperwork and booklet in the case. So they had me remove it and that was all I needed to do. But I had bought that gun on the trip and didn't think about papers in the case being a problem. I guess they were never in my other cases before but I really hadn't noticed. Or the rules had changed, not sure.

Guess maybe they didn't a criminal to have instructions on how to use the gun they just stole along with the gun? :wacko:

 

[sandetl]

Guess maybe they didn't a criminal to have instructions on how to use the gun they just stole along with the gun? :wacko:

Maybe. Security actually even looked through the papers to see what they were. They weren't bomb plans or anything hahaha, literately just the paperwork that comes with all of them new. Then he handed them to me and I put them inside my carry on. It was very odd.

 

[sandetl]

He even took out and handed me the little envelope with the two test rounds. They didn't want any paper at all in the case.