Travelling by air with a full size guitar could never be called a fun experience but it has been made much more difficult due to tougher security and confusing or difficult airline carry-on policies.

What is very clear is that you should be prepared to check-in a full size guitar to be carried in the hold or expect to be asked to pay for a seat for it. Some travellers experience great service from cabin crew who may store your guitar in a cabin wardrobe, but becoming rarer. 

It is best to ignore airline hand baggage policies when taking a guitar as these are not written to accomodate small guitars although our folding guitars are designed to meet these strict limits. Instead you should understand your airline's "small musical instrument policy" instead and all our instruments can be classed in this category.

All our instruments are light and compact and small enough to fit in cabin overhead lockers or under seats but will it be allowed in the cabin with you? The answer is generally YES but some airlines are clearer about this than others. Good airlines allow small musical instruments in the cabin providing they fit in the lockers and these qualify as a second piece of hand baggage. British Airways, Easyjet, Air France and many others are very accomodating in this respect.

One exception to the rule of common sense is RYANAIR who appear to seek every opportunity to penalise any passenger taking anything outside their 55 x 40 x 20 cm cabin baggage rule whether that is a rucksack, pushchair, or Fender Precision Bass Guitar! Our advice? Do not travel Ryanair if you are a musician with an instrument unless you accept that you will almost certainly need to pay an extra charge. There are plenty of scare stories but we also have customers travelling weekly with our instruments on Ryanair who have never had a problem. In any case you may find this newspaper article rather amusing (or not) where Ryanair apparently charged £1340 to take 3 violins in the cabin!

If you know different please let us know your own experience and we will add it to the list to help others.