Angry airport rant from Phillip Serna

I just received this story from bass blog contributor Phillip Serna documenting an infuriating experience at the airport with this viola da gamba. It is quite fitting that I got this story just a day after putting out the first part of my Basses, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles series.

Phillip writes:

You won’t believe this.

I was traveling American Airlines from Chicago to Boston with my 7-string bass viol in my Aluminum Flight Case.

This is for the Boston Early Music Festival. I had no problems with air travel in Chicago, other than the fact that I was not allowed to gate check the instrument – too big to buy a seat for it (being larger than a cello). I always have been apprehensive when traveling with my string bass, and prefer driving because our airline industry is not good about protecting our means of livelihood, if you get my drift. I had ‘special handling’ and my viol was well looked after until I got to Boston. I watched as my instrument was taken down off of the plane.


At first I was relieved that the gentleman was carrying my instrument to the luggage tram. Suddenly to my horror & disgust, the baggage handler threw – literally THREW the instrument into the tram container and it fell out the other side. Then the tram moved and he threw it again.

‘Special handling’ indeed.

I hurried in disgust off of the plane to get the instrument at baggage claim. What I found was the scroll was smashed to bits on impact. The rest of the instrument was fine – hence the reason for purchasing a flight case. Peace of mind…but not always. I have reported this to baggage claim with American Airlines, but they were honestly not helpful other than to enter a claim in their computer – and I thought that Delta Airlines was the one that the Musician’s Union was fighting with. Anyway, I was told to retain my travel documents to submit to my insurance.

NEVER ever go through these headaches without musical instrument insurance. At least the ending will not be an unhappy one costing thousands of dollars. I probably can’t do much until I return to Chicago after my Boston Early Music festival performances Thursday afternoon – I am sure a beheaded instrument will look mighty bad for the ensemble & solo concerts I have to do.

I love smart baggage people.

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1 Comment

  1. Benjy
    Benjy on June 16, 2007 at 8:22 am

    Hello Phillip;

    I underwent a much more dramatic experience back in 1979 while touring the US for 2 months with the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra. The group had 11 strings and we zigzagged around the country playing 32 concerts in 40 days.

    The only case that they had for me was one made out of straw. Sounds strange? Not really.

    These cases were the only thing around at the time and 8 of them were made by an association of blind people in town. They were not conceived for touring, only land travel.

    The one I had held up well, up until the next to last concert in Pensacola, Florida. I opened the case and the inevitable had taken place. The neck had snapped off due to a “smart” baggage person.

    That same evening, a local TV station wanted to film us, but I refused to take part in the show. The Orchestra had obviously agreed to pay for the repair once back at home, but our principle violinist still wanted me to quickly find another bass within 3 hours time for the filming. That’s what I call “sympathetic solidarity!” There was nothing around in the area, so I ranted and refused to take part in the performance sequence of the news report. The only thing that calmed my fury was a 5 min. interview on the “joys” being an American musician in a French group. Whoopee!

    Here’s an interesting anecdote to top things off: A few days later on the way home, I preferred carrying the neck with me and not in the case. I didn’t want the fingerboard to come off as well. All I had at hand to cover it were a few T-shirts and rubber bands. While going through security, I was stopped and questioned. The security guards wanted to know what type of suspicious looking machine gun I was trying to conceal and carry on the plane!

    I later had the orchestra buy a Stevenson case and on our next 2 month tour in 81, things went very smoothly. Nevertheless, this experience was valuable in revealing the “Bassist-Racist” feelings that we all encounter in our life, sometimes even from our own colleagues.