Last post for me (in this thread).
I just want to re-iterate one very important point:
There are no objective standards as to whether your guitar will be allowed on any commercial airline in the United States. I can't speak to international, except to say that international flights are more forgiving in general.
The most important thing to understand about flying is that everyone you meet (i.e. TSA, gate attendants, flight attendants) has authority over you and your bags. They can require you to check them. As I mentioned earlier, I saw someone kicked off a flight (you are not getting on this flight!, accompanied by tearing the customer's ticket into pieces) for asking an impertinent question.
If a flight attendant decides that your bag will be checked/that it does not fit in the overhead, you will either check it, or not fly at all. All they have to say is: I don't feel it is safe to allow this, and the airline, TSA, and police will back them completely, regardless of the reality, corporate policy, etc.
Just to establish my bonafides: I'm a frequent flyer, I have in excess of 500,000 lifetime miles, and frankly, have been there and done that.
I may come off as having an attitude, but please understand my thinking: I would not wish to see anyone's precious instrument destroyed, and I consider the risk to be very much in excess of the reward.
Just for additional reference, due to my frequent flyer status, I'm usually one of the first people on the plane, and have a tendency to people watch. I've seen several guitars be forced to be checked (at least gate-checked), and fewer that actually made it on (mostly Martin backpacker type).
If the flight is not full, your chances are better, but there isn't any reliable method of determining whether the flight will be full. If the prior flight gets canceled (which is more and more common due to lax maintenance and wanting to have full flights (i.e. if you have two half full flights within a few hours of each other, you can rest assured that the first flight will be canceled due to mechanical issues or some such)).
I've done risk analysis. Here's a basic formula for analyzing risk:
(probability that something will happen) * (effect of that happening) = actual risk
Let's fill in some samples:
If there is a 10% chance that your $5000 instrument will be destroyed:
.1 * 5000 = $500 risk, every time you get on a plane.
Now, there are strategies to deal with this, like insurance. But your insurance will not pay if the item was improperly packed. The airline will not pay the $2500 (IATA regulated) baggage insurance, because it was improperly packed. (We're assuming gig bag, right?)
The only way to get insurance to work is to make sure the item is properly packed, which means ATA approved flight case.
The other thing that is unstated here are values above dollars, which also work for this equation, but not in the mathematical sense. If for instance, you were traveling with your beloved pet, from whom you could not imagine being parted, the effect could be considered infinite, i.e. there is an infinite amount of actual risk attached, regardless of the chance. In the business world, the effect would typically be we cease to exist.
The other interesting part about risk management is that oftentimes there are no good (or even acceptable) answers. C'est la vie!
I apologize if my earlier responses were emotional, or contained attitude. I'd just hate to see it all end in tears.
Bradley
