Its getting to be summer workshop season. I'm not going anywhere this year, but thinking ahead to next year. Air travel in the US has become nearly impossible, from what I can tell, at least on United, with a lute. Some people do it by only having a small 6 course lute that may fit in the overhead bin, whether its strictly legal or not. I've tried various things, including checking the lute in a custom built shipping crate, and also buying the lute a ticket (the airline's preferred option I'm sure.) The shipping crate is now large enough to invoke the oversize penalty fee, and if I'm not very careful how I pack it, maybe also the overweight penalty fee. I checked the United web site, and the current prices for these are $175 for over size, and $125 for overweight, and of course they are separate and you might be charged for both. Oh, and that's one way. That's a minimum of $350 for using my shipping crate, and a random ticket price for Cleveland (thinking LSA next summer) was around $400. Now the time I paid for a ticket for my lute, even though I called and booked through the United call center, they failed to give me/us bulkhead seats, which is a requirement when you are strapping in something like a lute case. And now, of course, to book directly through United costs an extra fee. :-(
So what I wonder is this. Does anybody know of a company that will make custom fiberglass instrument cases, that might be able to make a lute case for checked baggage on the airlines? I have in mind the sort that you see cellos in that seem to be fiberglass on the outside, and custom shaped foam on the inside. Any thoughts? Suzanne To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
