Anyone taken a sword on a plane?

[PeridotCricket]

Do we take it as hold luggage or what.?

I know a re-enactment group who took swords, rifles and bayonets (plus blank ammo) by air, all in the hold. The airline (Air Canada) were OK with it all once all te paperwork and security boxes were sorted out.

Thank you Patricia. Googling hadn’t bought that up!

Waltzing On to the plane with a parrot and an eyepatch as a diversion had been considered.

DH and I were taking MIL, who was about 83 at the time, through security at City Airport in London a few years ago. DH and I were horrified when we were pulled aside because the X-ray machine had revealed a large 🔪 knife in MIL's handbag!! When questioned she looked confused and said she always carried a knife in case she needed it for cutting up an apple... She was very put out when security took her favourite knife away from her. DH and I pointed out she was lucky not to have been arrested!

The weirdest item I've travelled with, many years ago, was a giant (nearly life sized) cardboard cutout of Obelix from the Asterix books. I was in Brussels and had acquired it at the cartoon museum there as a gift for a friend of mine who loved Asterix. It was too big for cabin baggage but I knew it would get bent if it got checked into the hold. After a long discussion I was allowed to take it in the cabin and they fitted it between my seat and the window/side of the plane. Very obliging of them.

DH once boarded a plane in full Highland wedding regalia, including sgian dubh in his sock. He had to give it to cabin crew for the flight, but they gave it back when he disembarked. That was a good few years ago now, mind.

Eh? What?! Just. No.

Years ago, I was given a katana in Vancouver, and brought in back to the UK taped up in a big tube in the hold.

What ?! Surely you can't take a sword on a plane. Someone reassure me you can't take a sword on a plane

We were treated like terror suspects for trying to take 2 tennis racquets in the cabin to Portugal

This was just after all the hoohah about taking liquids on a plane happened, too.
On the journey out, you could have anything you liked and on the journey back, they were confiscating our water and everything.
But I was allowed to have my katana 🤷‍♀️

My mum says that in the sixties loads of people used to board flights home from Spain armed with a Toledo sword! No doubt, post 9/11, they're confiscated.

You can't even take a small clear plastic (very obviously) TOY sword emblazoned with Spider-Man on a plane. DS's was confiscated at security, causing much distress.
You could do more damage with the plastic knife you get with the in-flight food. Bonkers.

I travelled by plane to Scotland with my sword (I’m ex-armed forces). I spoke with the airline first, but all I had to do was hand it in at security so it could go in the hold! At check in they gave me a luggage label to secure to the case, but wouldn’t take it on the luggage belts in case it was damaged. I declared to the security staff who x rayed it and took it to the aircraft. I then picked it up from the oversized luggage desk at the other end! I didn’t even have to pay extra.

That said, it’s not the weirdest thing i’ve taken on a flight!

I forgot to say...my mum and granddad remember a time when military personnel used to take their swords into the cabin with them!!

My mum was an air hostess and my Grandad a flight engineer on 747s. Military personnel would just rock up to the plane and hand their swords to the cabin crew, who would then ask the pilots if they wouldn’t mind stowing the swords on the flight deck. If the pilots were themselves ex-forces, the answer was usually ‘yes’, otherwise they would be put in the hold. Ahh...the 60s and 70s...thems were the days...