[CQ-Contest] Baggage Charges for Expeditions

[Chet]

As a thought, you might try finding out if any HAM commercial pilots fly
that route.  When we went to VP2A we were in the airport when we ran across
Conrad WA3SSB in the airport.  He asked us where we were going and we said
Antigua.  He said that was his flight and then asked if we had any ham
equipment we would like him to get on the plane.  We did and it saved us a
bundle and this was before all these new charges were instigated.  He was
regularly flying to Antigua and the run to PJ2.  We fully intended to bring
everything back with us but we ended up giving some stuff that was going to
cost more to ship back stateside than it would cost to replace it stateside.
All of the beams/rotors were sold to the locals which saved them some
serious shipping fees and saved us a fortune by not having to ship it back.

73

Chet  N4FX, VP2A, KP4EAJ, KL7AIZ, ZD8W, VQ9XX, N6ZO, N6ZO/HH9, N6ZO/6Y5,
KG4ZO

-----Original Message-----
From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Geoff Howard
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:44 PM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Baggage Charges for Expeditions

Contesters,

Is there anyone in the contesting community who works at American 
Airlines corporate (and is willing to identify yourself)?

I'm interested in investigating the possibility of getting ham 
equipment classified as sports equipment for baggage charge purposes. 
To explore this, we need a contact inside of AA. The recent large 
increases in baggage charges are rapidly making it prohibitive for us 
to continue to operate overseas. (An oversize bag, for example, is 
now $200. A third piece is $150.) Because of these charges, we have 
had to decide this week to hold back considerable important equipment 
that was scheduled to go to PJ2T this fall.

Anybody else running into showstopper baggage charges on DXpeditions? 
Any ideas or advice for us?

     Thanks,

           - Geoff, W0CG, PJ2DX, for the PJ2T crews

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