Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska WARNING ABOUT NORTHWEST/DELTA AIRLINES

Returned to Detroit from Alaska hunt June '09 on Northwest; flight was late so I volunteered to be last off plane so many others could make connecting planes. When I got to baggage pickup, found my RIFLE on carrousel with my other two bags! Only person there was sky cap hoping I would pay him to carry bags. "Is that your rifle?" he asked. Gladly paid him. My .338 was there for the taking by anyone! Have NEVER not had to go to airline office, present claim ticket with picture ID before being handed my firearm. With 30 years fighting crime in Detroit, stolen firearms are huge concern. Sent letter to president of Delta/Northwest & operations manager at Detroit. Ops manager never responded. PR person from Delta wrote "...we no longer have positive identification when leaving the baggage area." and "incidents of stolen luggage are rare." As a life member of the NRA, I wrote to them in July'09 asking them to share my concern. Director of NRA publications wrote back he would povide feedback to members via all their mags....unless I missed it, they never did. So now I will attempt to pass the word via this format/ Chaz

Had the same experience coming back from Iraq with a friend, case with M4 and pistol, obviously a weapons case, just with the bags, no biggie.

I don't know if I should be appalled or shopping.....

This is the reason I use a hard sided golf bag case if I'm taking more than one rifle or lots of gear anywhere. Looks like golf stuff, and everyone knows the penalty for stealing golf clubs is death.

Are all you people from Detroit this hyper?

So what's the point of you whine here?

Moved

Happened to me at Burbank, Ca on Ak Air ... my rifle case came out with the bags ... no one checking ID's ...

Yes I go from Ak to Burbank with a rifle ... for some of the best Hog hunting there is; is in SoCal !!!!

I would rather have the rifle come down the carousel. I don't want to have to mess with a bunch of airline bureaucracy.

Now we have some hyper-ventilating dude here stirring things up for nothing.

Maybe i'm missing something but are you saying that your rifle was laying on the carousel without being in a case?

That's my thought as well.

I guess you won't want to be the last off the plane anymore then.

Maybe not, but this story doesn't do anything to make me feel warm and fuzzy about the Delta/NW nor the airlines as a whole.

I haven't flown since before 9/11, mostly because of TSA bullchit, but this makes me more determined to avoid A/L travel!

Plus this guy doesn't deserve all the disrespect he's been shown even if he was naive about A/L abuse toward hunters/gun owners.

maybe not, but this topic doesn't deserve NINE threads in different sections...

That's for sure!!!!!

I prefer having my bags treated equally... And like I trust the average baggage handler more than the average citizen...

Why would you contact the NRA? I need to reread the Second Amendment to find the clause about airline terminals.

You can buy rifle travel cases that don't look like rifle cases. Or, you could move away from Detroit.

Have flown Northwest between AK and the states too many times to remember, and don't recall ever having this happen. I can't imagine it happening one time, to one person, warrants such a hubbub? If it were a chronic problem, I suspect we'd hear about it more often. Flew Delta from Atlanta-Jo-burg in 09, and will do so again in '11, as they treated us great.

Jeff

I have had a few missing / late gun case arrivals in recent years here in Ketchikan and I have been surprised at the lack of accountability in keeping track of guns. Not particularly with Ak Air (they seem to have it together pretty well) but with some of the connecting airlines.

You would thunk that Guns would be a priority to keep scanned and know the where abouts of !!!!

How hard can it be ????

I came all the way over just to read that?

Did I read this right? This happened last June? Why the panic now?

I like it when my rifles come down the carousel with my other stuff....means I don't have to deal with some bureaucrat in some dark, oily corner of the airport to retrieve them...

That has been happening for years, you really never know where your guns or golf clubs will be, sometimes in the office ands sometimes in the baggage claim...I pick up my bags and if the guns are not there I go to the baggage claim office and ola there they are..

I never have been all that concerned one way or the other, its faster if they come out with the baggage..If you worried about gun theft, they can be stolen at a hundred differnt places enroute between point A and B..I insure mine for enough that I pray they get stolen!

Some guys get an axe to grind, and get so focused on it that they lose sight of the rest of the world around them.

This was a year ago??

And you got your rifle, undamaged??

And you're STILL on a mad posting spree over it (what, nine separate forums here?)??

Damn dude, are you going to just implode when something REALLY gets serious in your life??

Did I ever tell anyone about the time I got shorted at the drive through? I think it was in 1978. I'm still feeling damaged by that one.

Sounds like a case of a deepset grain of sand in the vageegee