Flying With Poles

[rainbowgirl28]

I am working on a new section of the website. I am going to have a page for each of the airlines that details their policies regarding poles.

I need your help! Email me or post here...

I will have one page with tips for flying with poles. Sooo post your advice for people traveling with poles.

I will also have sections for people to post their experiences. You can either post it here or email it to me. To email it, copy and paste the following information into an email. Make the subject "FLYING WITH POLES". Send to becca@polevaultpower.com

Name:
Date Traveled:
Airline:
Describe your experience:

[rainbowgirl28]

Ok check out what I have so far:

http://polevaultpower.com/airlines/

[jmayesvaultmom]

We have flown American with poles once, but will never do it again. It was $80 each way. For convenience for a meet that Jodie was trying to get to after flying to Miami, we drove 5 hrs. to fly out of St. Louis so that when we came back it would just be about a 2 hr. drive to a meet in Columbia. I had talked to baggage about 3 times prior to driving to St. Louis and asked them to note it in their system that I had spoken with them. We arrived in St. Louis only to be told that they could not get the poles on the plane...that they were too big. I told them that I specifically booked a flight on a 747 DC10 whatever that is the same size as Southwest uses and that they would fit. I asked them to check to see where I had called baggage. They then decided I needed to talk to the airport manager. They finally figured out they COULD get them on the plane (duh).... they did get to Miami on time. This is the reason we always try to get to an airport at least 2 hours before the flight is scheduled to leave to allow for "uninformed" employees.

The problem was on the way back. We got to the airport at 6 for an 8:30 flight. I watched them take the poles on a cart to go down and put them on the flight at about 6:30. When we boarded, I asked one of the stewards if he could call baggage and make sure that the poles got on the plane. He told me that since 9/11, no passenger flies without their luggage and no luggage goes without the passenger. HA....that's a good one! We got to St. Louis...no poles. It took them 1 1/2 hours to tell us that they did not put them on the plane...no room. HA again...we got there 2 1/2 hrs. early and paid another $80 to get them on the plane. When did they decide that there was no room? We then had to wait another 4 hours in the St. Louis airport for them to come in on another flight. We will never fly American again with poles. We always fly Southwest and have never had a problem (with the exception of the Reno disaster that has since then been fixed.!) The only time we have had any problem with SW is when we flew to California for Jr. Nationals and the poles made it but not our luggage. We were "who cares...we have the poles!" She had taken her spikes and everything to vault with but the poles as carryon...so we didn't care!

[rainbowgirl28]

Oooh that is good advice... when going to a meet, always take your important meet stuff in your carryon!

[Russ]

Becca,

This is really great info. Thanks. You are doing a fabulous job for the pole vault world by providing info like this.

In May I flew roundtrip from Hartford to Raleigh via Baltimore on Southwest with 4 poles in one bag. True to their word, they charged me $70 for the poles and everything arrived on time and in one piece. I was very happy with Southwest. I think that your efforts in the wake of the Reno 2003 disaster have made all the difference in the world!

[lonestar]

I agree that Southwest has done the best with poles for me. Always $35 each way, and they only lost them once (actually, they confused my bag with Mel Mueller's in Phoenix, and I ended up getting her poles in Austin.) They were very apologetic, got my poles to me the next day and Mel's back to her, plus gave me a $150.00 travel voucher to keep my happy

Just flew America West out to San Diego a few weeks ago. They have a NO-CHARGE policy under the baggage section of their website and held true to it, but be sure to bring a printed copy of the policy off their website(for any airline you use) to the airport. They couldn't fit the poles on my plane on the return trip, but had them there the next day.

Flew Continental to Spain last week, $80 each way, no problems. Also flew Iberia from Madrid to Seville, Spain, they didn't fit on one flight, so we just took a later flight on a bigger plane, also about $80 each way. Hardest part was carrying the poles and all my luggage from baggage to customs in Newark, NJ!

As far as I know, Delta doesn't take poles, period.

American I believe is $80 each way.

Not sure about United.

[ashcraftpv]

Oooh that is good advice... when going to a meet, always take your important meet stuff in your carryon!

our head coach used to always make us put our spikes and uniform in our carry-on.

"I don't care if you lose your luggage, you can still run when we get there!"

[JMP8928]

so America West flys poles for free eh?... they're not going to cut them in half or ne thing right?? are they good about flying poles? or do you get what you pay for?

[rainbowgirl28]

I still need you guys to email me your experiences flying with poles, good or bad.

Here's a link someone sent me...

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_810462.html

Airline says lost luggage may not be its 'vault'

A Swedish pole vaulter claims Scandinavian Airlines lost her set of 15ft-long poles during a short flight from her home to Germany.

Hanna-Mia Persson, 23, says the flexible sticks disappeared when she travelled from Goteborg to Stuttgart with a stopover in Copenhagen.

But the airline believes another pole vaulter may have picked them up by accident.

She says the poles, which were bound together and weigh at least 40 kilos, never appeared on the luggage carousel in Stuttgart.

Ms Persson said. "They can't just magically disappear. It's very strange that they're not able to find luggage of that size."

A spokesman for the airline said: "We transport about 35 million pieces of luggage a year so we're quite used to handling lost items, but this type of special luggage is usually easy to find."

He said an extensive search at all three airports has come up empty.

"We have a theory that someone took the wrong luggage. That some other pole vault team has taken these by mistake," he said.

Ms Persson said the nine poles were specially designed for her and few pole vaulters in the world use poles with the same flexibility.

© Associated Press

[vanya]

Hi All

Interesting to hear your experiences in the US. You might be amused at the attitude in New Zealand. I was flying from Wellington (capital city) to Auckland (largest city). The airline rep (Air New Zealand) said on the phone that the pole carrier would go on the plane just fine and there was no extra charge.

Due to lack of vehicles I decided to drop the poles at the airport the night before our morning flight. We then found that the carrier would not go through the baggage area, so the guy on duty told us to meet him outside and we heaved it up over the barbed wire fence into the tarmac area, from which he retrieved it. He thought it would be too big to go on the plane so he had 2 guys take it out and try putting on board!

Reporting success we left, with the pole lying on the air-side of the baggage area. Next morning when we arrived for the flight the check in clerk took me round their side of the counter to make sure the label was stuck on the pole carrier ok!

No armed security guards, no extra charge, no questions asked !!!

---Ian---

[MightyMouse]

This may be a stupid question, but this will be my first time to Reno,
How do you get your poles from the airport to the Hotel?, I cant see a cabbie straping poles on his roof.

[rainbowgirl28]

This may be a stupid question, but this will be my first time to Reno,
How do you get your poles from the airport to the Hotel?, I cant see a cabbie straping poles on his roof.

The Summit directors have someone at the airport who shuttles them back and forth.