Message from the South African cellist Peter Martens, a member of the Capetown Philharmonic:
Unfortunately, not everyone has the money to buy a seat for their cello even though it may be valuable. Mine is a fine Lockey Hill and I have a BAM Hightech case with a flight cover which I use when the concert promoter does not have budget to buy my cello the extra seat. I understand that some insurers simply don’t allow this for more expensive cellos.
Three days ago, I flew from Paris to Johannesburg with AirFrance. My trip included a concert in Devon in the UK as well as a holiday in Newcastle, so I bought a multi-city flight from the KLM website. All legs were on KLM except the Paris-Johannesburg leg which was on AirFrance. On none of the KLM flights was the checking in of the BAM flight case an issue, but at the airport in Paris, they simply would not let me check it without first coughing up 240 Euros, which for me as a South African who earns primarily in ZAR, is a lot of money. They said that the case was 4cm too long!
The French make the BAM case and flight cover which with the cello inside, is well within the weight limit for a checked bag, yet AirFrance is the only airline that has ever charged me this exorbitant extra fee! I have also flown on SAA, Emirates, Qatar, Lufthansa and all of South Africa’s smaller local carriers with my BAM flight case and none of them have ever charged me anything extra.
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