Flying Has Got to Be One of the Circles of Dante’s Inferno (Musicians Beware PLAY Airlines)
Sometimes touring is like a shit sandwich, but with the shit on the outside and the good stuff in the middle. The shit on the outside usually involves flying.
DAY 13: We left ourselves one extra day to drop the car off and then explore Amsterdam proper a bit, but we were almost too tired to do much of anything. The hotel we had booked for tonight just gave off a dirty, bad vibe when we arrived, so we cancelled that reservation and hastily looked around for another one, drove the car there to drop the bags off, then dropped the car back off at the airport. The hotel thing was a total hassle, and took up the entire morning and half the afternoon. Went to check in for our flight and the airline’s website is now showing error messages when it comes to baggage allowance. Not sure what to do about that, other than check again later. It’s a newer, budget carrier (PLAY out of Stewart Airport), which might be great for someone packing a backpack for an overnight in Reykjavik, but isn’t that great for people who travel with actual luggage, like musicians. Not having to drive 2 hours and park at Newark or JFK was definitely handy, but what you can gain with one hand you lose with the other. Later on the site showed the correct baggage, and we paid extra to check another bag (mostly because of the wine we got in France), so I thought we were fine there. Stopped worrying about that, and took the hotel shuttle to the airport/train station where we caught a train to Amsterdam, wandered around a bunch in the rain, and then found an incredible wine bar that was recommended to us by the guys we met in Arbois. They were right - it was one of the best meals I’d had all trip, which was saying something. Got back to the hotel, took a shower, did some packing, and collapsed into bed.
DAY 14: In the morning, we left plenty of time to get to the airport, which turned out to be a good thing, since even after paying for extra checked luggage (AND paying for carry on luggage (which is different than “personal items”) AND priority boarding to ensure space in the overhead compartments, a traveling musician’s nightmare still awaited me at check in: they denied allowing the fiddle into the cabin, and tried to force me to check it, because it was not the exact rectangular size they allow. Never mind that I had paid for it as a carry on, or that I had paid for priority boarding, or that the cubic inches of the case were likely far LESS than many of the other suitcases they were allowing on, or that it fits easily into the overhead compartment of an Airbus A320, OR that on BOTH identical flights over, the crews at both Stewart and Reykjavik allowed it on with absolutely no problem. At Schipol they were not having it, and said my only recourse was to either check it with regular baggage or buy an extra seat for it. (If I could afford to buy it an extra seat, I wouldn’t be flying on a budget carrier!) It took 20 extra minutes of reasoning, pleading, tears, and phone calls to superiors before they finally asked the CAPTAIN OF THE PLANE whether it was OK, and he said it was no problem, tagged the case himself, and told me to have a good flight. So I got on the plane with the fiddle, and then almost started crying again from relief. For this reason alone, I can’t fly PLAY again with an instrument. Maybe if I take a quick trip to Iceland with just a duffel bag or something, I’d fly with them again, but since there’s absolutely no guarantee I would be allowed onboard with my instrument, it’s a chance I can’t take. Even if the tools of my livelihood weren’t at stake by this sort of thing, the added stress to an already hard travel situation is just not something I can live with anymore. My mental health deserves better, if nothing else.
I’ve heard similar complaints from other musicians about Aer Lingus, Air Canada, and a couple other international carriers, so allow me to add PLAY to that list: Musicians Beware. The baggage policy is a scary combination of very strict in terms of size and weight, and also wildly inconsistent (other passengers on our flight also said similar things, about the exact same suitcase being allowed in one place and denied in others.) US carriers have legal agreements in place with the TSA (brokered by the musicians’ union) that state that musical instruments are required to be allowed in the cabin if there is room in the overhead bins at the time of boarding. (This is why I usually pay extra for priority boarding.) But foreign carriers are not bound by these regulations, so there’s very little recourse if something like this happens. The crew finally softened to my plight, with the assistance of the captain, so all was well, but I’m very glad I remembered I have extra wine at home so I don’t have to open the stuff I got in France tonight. Home to a lot of jet lag, a lot of laundry, and a lot of catching up on things I might have missed while I was gone. I’ll be posting more bits and bobs from this tour, but this is the official end of the journal. Hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with us - even if it was a day or so late!
