FIM

“Dear Musicians’ Union

I am writ­ing to let you know about a recent inci­dent con­cern­ing Air France when trav­el­ling out of London Heathrow Terminal 4 to Paris Charles de Gaulle.

I thought per­haps you might be inter­est­ed to have fur­ther evi­dence of the con­tin­u­ing unten­able cir­cum­stances faced by musi­cians who have inter­na­tion­al careers and thus need to trav­el on a fre­quent basis.

I play the goth­ic bray harp. This is a very small harp mea­sur­ing 106 x 46 x 22 cm. It looks a bit like an acoustic gui­tar. This year alone I have played in 10 European coun­tries tak­ing over 30 one way flights in order to play and teach.

I had already flown with Air France on 4 sep­a­rate occa­sions in 2013 alone with­out inci­dent. However, on Saturday 23rd November, I arrived at London Heathrow for the return por­tion of a Paris to London to Paris flight. I had flown to England with my harp as hand lug­gage on the out­ward bound already (on Thursday 14th November). At check-​in, the check-​in clerk pro­ceed­ed to label my bag­gage and then called over a super­vi­sor when he saw my instru­ment. I explained that it fits no prob­lem in the over­head lock­er and that I had flown to London with it as hand lug­gage. Also, I had no oth­er hand lug­gage. The Air France rep­re­sen­ta­tive said that I would have to buy an extra seat, that it would take up 3 peo­ple’s lug­gage space in the over­head bins and that the Air France pol­i­cy is clear; if it is out­with the nor­mal dimen­sions for hand lug­gage (55 x 35 x 25 cm) it can­not be tak­en on as hand bag­gage. He insist­ed on repeat­ing that by buy­ing a tick­et I had accept­ed these conditions.

At least clear appli­ca­tion of rules would mean I know what to expect instead of always being at the whim of who­ev­er hap­pens to be work­ing at the air­port on any par­tic­u­lar day

I spoke to the Air France duty man­ag­er at the Terminal and put for­ward the point that the incon­sis­ten­cy is what makes it so hard to trav­el. If there was a clear pol­i­cy of ALWAYS charg­ing for an extra seat for every­thing out­side the hand bag­gage gauge (which would include trum­pets, vio­lins, sax­o­phones etc), then the peo­ple I work for would recog­nise I have to have an extra seat (I realise that this is in fact dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, but at least clear appli­ca­tion of rules would mean I know what to expect instead of always being at the whim of who­ev­er hap­pens to be work­ing at the air­port on any par­tic­u­lar day). She apol­o­gised for the lack of con­sis­ten­cy but of course, this did­n’t make any dif­fer­ence at the time.

I was forced to buy a Eurostar tick­et for trav­el lat­er that day at much incon­ve­nience and not incon­sid­er­able extra cost.

Clearly, I believe their musi­cal instru­ment pol­i­cy is dis­crim­i­na­to­ry as well because it means ring­ing to buy a tick­et at extra cost in com­par­i­son with buy­ing online and the added fear that an over­booked flight will any­way force you to either put the instru­ment over­head (ridicu­lous con­sid­er­ing how much you’ve been forced to pay for the extra seat) or in the hold (at which point I would have to dis­em­bark and not trav­el for fear of what would hap­pen to it in the ten­der hands of bag­gage han­dlers). However, in the mean­time, I am writ­ing to com­plain to their CEO about the incon­sis­ten­cy of the appli­ca­tion of the rules.

It seems to me that con­di­tions are wors­en­ing, hav­ing trav­elled on a reg­u­lar basis as a medieval harpist for the past 13 years. This I believe is due to chang­ing ways in which peo­ple trav­el (now far more only car­ry hand bag­gage) and the grow­ing num­bers of pas­sen­gers putting more pres­sure on the over­head lock­ers. What frus­trates me is that a suit­case would only rarely have con­tents worth £3500 (the val­ue of my instru­ment) and are unlike­ly to break and become unus­able if trans­port­ed in the hold where­as my harp would be at seri­ous dan­ger of irrepara­ble dam­age. I can­not hire an instru­ment on arrival and if it did break, I would be out of action until it could be repaired or a new one could be made — months of not working.

I know that as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of musi­cians you must have heard lots of sim­i­lar, if not worse, sto­ries but I hope that this adds to your evi­dence col­lec­tion in a use­ful way.

All the very best,

PS I would like to say that Easyjet con­tin­ues to be my favourite and most trust­ed air­line; their instru­ment pol­i­cy is clear and their staff are always wel­com­ing and under­stand­ing. With speedy board­ing, I nev­er have a prob­lem find­ing a space for my instru­ment and I am nev­er ques­tioned about it even when the staff are hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing room for all the oth­er pas­sen­gers’ bags. Long may this continue”.