Oceansource.net guide to flying with kitesurfing kit
People are often surprised that it’s possible to take kitesurf gear through airports and onto planes, especially given that currently a bottle of water is considered a security risk. But actually it’s not only possible but relatively easy to take gear, often for free. Wide-bodied passenger jets have a lot of space below the seating area and airlines are more than happy to sell you a place to park your board. If you’re prepared to pass it off as a set of golf clubs you might not have to pay. This article talks you through the whole travel process including getting where you want to go while taking everything you need, not paying over the odds, and not having it destroyed by the baggage handlers.
All flights can be divided into three categories, charter, scheduled and low cost, and these three categories have very different attitudes towards watersports kit. We start off assuming you’re going to be honest and pay any charges up front, (but don’t worry, we’ll look at the scamming approach later on)…
Charter flights
These are the easiest to book and nearly all have a very simple and accommodating policy towards watersports gear. Most charge around 20-30 euros each way to take a surfboard, and apply the same rule to kitesurfing gear. Despite how new kiting is, charter airlines are often very used to kiters travelling to popular destinations and don’t check inside the bags as long as you pay their basic fee, and the bags don’t look too big.
Some charter companies allow you to pay in advance and some don’t. If they do it’s worth doing, as it saves times at the airport (otherwise you usually have to find the airlines offices to pay, you can’t pay at the check-in desk). It also makes it more likely that your kit will travel with you. In the (unlikely) event that the plane’s holds become full, pre-booked on kit will go on first, and those who paid at the airport may find their kit only arrives at their destination a few days later. It’s also often cheaper to pay when you book your ticket rather than at the airport. In summary though, charter flights are relatively easy to deal with and relatively cheap to take kit on.
Scheduled Airlines
Scheduled airlines are usually a lot more hassle. There is much less common ground in their attitude regarding kit and you have to take things in an airline by airline approach. Check the page for the airline you’re thinking of flying with for an explanation of their policy and reviews of people who’ve already flown with them.
It’s hard to generalise, but very loosely – for short haul flights you might not have to pay as much, but for long haul destinations you should expect to pay considerably more than with charter flights.
Low-Cost Airlines
Also known as Budget or No Frills airlines – and they’re taking over the skies at an alarming rate. Ryanair is now the world’s biggest airline in terms of the number of people it flies. Low cost airlines can offer kitesurfers an incredible range of destinations at ridiculously low fares, but you need to be sure when you’re booking that you’ve not been suckered into paying over the odds with hidden taxes and charges (we’ve prepared an article on getting the best from low cost airlines here). Most are still surprisingly tolerant towards kitesurfers so you can usually take your kit quite cheaply, but you have to be careful. For one, low cost airlines have very strict rules regarding check-in times, baggage allowance and everything else, and they make a significant proportion of their income from penalising people who fail to abide by the letter of their rules. Some low cost airlines charge a flat rate per board (which is good), while others charge the flat rate for the right to take a board – and then allow an extra 10kg of luggage allowance or so, then charging excess luggage rates at anything over this rate (which isn’t so good). Check the airlines list to see the policy of the company you’re thinking of flying with.
A couple more notes on low-cost airlines with kit. Be at the check-in when it opens if at all possible. Go out of your way to be friendly and accommodating – the staff are used to angry customers and won’t go out of their way to help you if you’re one of them. Make sure you don’t leave your gear in the way of other customers. And finally, be very wary of using a low cost airline to connect up with another flight whether or not it’s the same company. While most airlines will take responsibility if you miss a connecting flight because they were late, low cost airlines won’t, even if they operate both flights. At the very least, get a flight that gives you a long time to make that connection, even if it means sitting in an airport for six hours when the whole journey runs smoothly.
Packing up
Modern wide-bodied passenger jets have almost as much room below the seating area as in the passenger cabin, so space for luggage isn’t a big issue for airlines. Weight is though, because it has a direct impact on how much fuel the plane uses, particularly in take off. Therefore if you’re taking kitesurfing kit, weight is always more of an issue than the size of your bag and you need to make sure you’re on or below the maximum stated in your normal baggage allowance (unless you’re taking surfboard-style waveboards, which often fall into the same category as surfing or windsurfing gear). Some airlines are clear about the maximum weight of gear you’re allowed to bring – and 24kg is a common figure these days, but others are frustratingly vague. If your airline belongs to the vague camp you should at the very least limit yourself to 32kg as an absolute maximum for any one bag. In the European Union this is the absolute limit the baggage handlers are allowed to lift by law and any bags above this weight don’t get to fly anywhere. (You’ll either have to repack at the airport or leave something behind.)
However, it’s often easy to bypass normal weight restrictions and get kit on for free by pretending it’s a set of golf clubs. Because airlines like to look after their more affluent passengers, and golf clubs usually belong to gold card holding Mercedes Benz drivers (cars, not vans) they’ve traditionally carried heavy clubs for free. Since it’s easy to fit kite gear into golf-style bags, it’s an easy and obvious scam. Having said that many low-cost airlines (which have cut exactly this type of frill from airline travel) now charge for golf clubs anyway, so you can ditch the silly trousers – there’s no point in trying to pass yourself off as a golfer with these airlines.
There are quite a few bags on the market designed to look like golf bags in airports, such as the NSI Deceiver or Naish Golf bag. These have prominent golf logos down the side but are designed to fit boards and kites rather than golf clubs. They can pay for themselves after just one trip. If you know of other good bags which are tried and tested to fool check-in staff please let us know and we’ll list them here.
Some people also report taking gear through check-in unseen in army style kit bags, which are roughly the same shape as golf bags and easy to find in Army Surplus type stores (and cheaper). They’re usually smaller and will maybe only take one or two kites plus one board, but that’s enough for most destinations anyway.
A good tip we’ve heard for carrying kites is to use vacuum bags which are airtight and have a one-way valve. You simply fold the kite up (removing any battens) and then either use your pump, a vacuum cleaner, or you just sit on it to suck/push out all the air. This doesn’t damage the kite but saves a lot of space. The only downside is if you get your bag checked at security and have to open the vacuum bag, as it’s very hard to get it back in again afterwards. Check the pictures to see the difference!
Equipment before
Equipment using Vacuum Bag
Avoiding damage
A decent board and quiver bag will take most of the knocks and scrapes so your kit doesn’t have to. You can put a bit of extra padding around the rails if you’re worried about it, but an 8-10mm thick foam bag should be fine for a board. However, make sure it’s securely strapped into the bag so it can’t move around, and that nothing can hit it in the bag such as a harness hook or – if you’ve had to unscrew one side of the footstraps to close the bag – the footstrap screw. It’s always a good idea to wrap the bag with a couple of roofrack straps pulled tight in case the zip fails (and straps always come in handy when you’re abroad).
Check-in staff
If you’re going for the golf approach bear in mind that golfers wouldn’t normally turn up barefoot in boardshorts and reading a kiting magazine. Pick your queue carefully. A young, inexperienced-looking agent might not realise you need to pay for kite gear, but then again they might panic and call a supervisor who may then decide to examine the kit carefully. It’s always a bit of a lottery though and those who are careful students of human nature will do better here! Whichever you pick, smile sweetly, be helpful, funny, polite and understanding. And good luck.
Finally, there are some signs of the EU 32kg limit being reduced to 24kg in the near future. BA have already made 24kg the maximum weight of any one bag, and this has potential consequences for the travelling kitesurfer. We contacted several airlines to ask if they had any plans to follow BA in this matter, and all said they had NO plans to do so in the near future, but that this wasn’t a guarantee that this policy wouldn’t change. If it happens we’ll let you know and try to work out where this leaves us all.
And last of all, please do consider offsetting your carbon from every flight you make. It might not save the world nor improve your waveriding, but it will result in a few more trees being planted, which can’t be a bad thing. www.climatecare.org is a very good website for this.
Have a good trip!
If you have any general travel tips or hints for flying with kitesurfing gear please tell us here. If you have tips for a specific airline please post on the page for that airline. Thanks.
Last updated: September 21, 2007
Leaving feedback:
If you have travelled with equipment, or know any good tips, please let everyone know by leaving feedback here.
|
