ConnachtRambler said:
micamino73 said:
Hi, So is the consensus that you can't bring your fully collapsed hiking sticks on the plane?
I don't think we have reached consensus just yet. There are two issues, one concerning Airport Security and the other concerning the airline on which you are booked to travel.
snip
I find this and previous 'debates' on this topic fascinating, as well as the notion that as a community, we can reach a 'consensus' - other than what might be provided as good advice to fellow pilgrims. I watch it with interest, because I have been travelling by air with technical walking poles for over a decade, and always carried them in my checked bag(s).
In the first instance, the rules on dangerous and restricted items are set by the various regulatory authorities, TSA in the US, CASA in Australia, the EU, etc. The airlines don't get a say, and suggesting that airline staff have some management prerogative is misleading. See, for example,
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Foreigntravel/AirTravel/DG_176922 which specifically lists walking poles as a prohibited item in cabin baggage. The airlines reflect these rules in their own advice, and set their own fee structures for hold baggage.
I understand that the baggage rules of budget carriers like Ryanair make it attractive to only take a cabin bag. I have travelled with Ryanair, and one observation is that they are already relatively liberal in enforcing the dimension restrictions on cabin baggage on the flights that I have been on. However, at most airports, the application of the cabin baggage dangerous and restricted items rules is not done by the airline, but the security staff at the entry to the departure lounge.
There is the suggestion that you dis-assemble the poles and try to brave out the airport departure area baggage check - an interesting suggestion to blatantly flout the regulations. This seems to me haunted with uncertainty, and one might want to plan for that approach to fail. If the poles are detected, you may have the opportunity to return and have them checked, but there are several airports through which I have travelled where that wouldn't be possible, and the poles would then have to be abandoned. Of course, new poles could be bought at any of the big departure towns on the Camino.
Second, there is what I think is a fanciful notion that walking poles could be allowed in the cabin as some form of mobility aid. There is no such category, but essential medical equipment is allowed as cabin baggage, see for example
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/TravelAndTransport/Publictransport/AirtravelintheUK/DG_078179 where the principle is
You are allowed to bring medical equipment if it is essential for your journey with the requirement that your doctor provide documentary evidence to that effect. I am not sure how someone travelling to start a Camino of some hundreds of kilometres is going to argue they need a walking pole to get down the aircraft aisle to their seat.
My last observation is to return to this idea that there should be some 'consensus'. If any consensus in needed, it is that we should provide the best advice we can to fellow pilgrims based on either our own experience or well founded research. I don't think we have always met this objective in this discussion. For example, I don't think suggestions about how to break the law, which is what the civil aviation regulations are here in Australia, have a place in this forum, no matter how well motivated the individuals otherwise might be.
Regards,