Im off to egypt on sunday flying into sharm el sheikh with exel airlines.
Im taking a 140cm coffin bag no other luggage. Thing is, do i pre-book the gear onto the flight as they suggest £50 each way. Or risk it at the check in, find the cutest girl or campest assistant and try and blag it. If i have to pay for the kit its half way there in cost of renting it in egypt
Anyone had any experiences with this airline?

Risk It at Check In

But tell them that it's dive gear (not kites like I said).

Excel are getting tough on surfboards, but hey will only charge you £50 at the airport if they really insist and at the Egypt end they just don't care.

If you have any dive qualifications (PADI card) have them ready with your passport and pack your bag so that wet suits etc are near the top. If do have to insist it's dive gear you produce diving like items first. If all else fails say that you do have kites but no kiteboard (it's the board that costs- why?) and they will let it through.

Don't pick the good lookin one at check-in she's a jobs worth and don't pick the oldest one she knows the all the tricks

Would be interested to know how you get on in Sharm as I'm not aware of many good kite spots, hope you find some as it's very cheap

Have a good one

When are you going??

I've just booked a flight to Sharm El Sheik heading out on April 29th.. Getting excited already!

Al.

Agree with Kitefish, wing it at check-in. But say something like 'I understand I may have to pay some excess' and don't be too smarmy or make a cheap comment, and make sure you do not have an audience. I work in travel myself and we're sick of blaggers... when someone offers to pay that comes as such a change that we normally let 'em off. I've travelled with BA and Monarch with windsurfing kit (3 pieces @ 32kg each) and, using the above tactic, have never been charged. Prepare to pay, then it's beer money if you don't have to!

Oh, and have a great time all of you! I'm still in shock that Al's going to a non-UK destination. Whatever next?!

And another thing Kiteboy!

Can you let me know how much your bag weighs?

Only I'm hoping to travel soon with one kite, one board, wettie, harness, and clothes all in the one bag. I know the absolute max limit is 32kg.

We're travelling with Malaysian in Oct and their limit is 20kg. I know we'll be over that, I was just wondering by how much as I don't have a bag yet. If it's too awful it might be worth us flying via the US where we get a bigger luggage allowance but have to spend an extra 10 or so hours getting to Perth. Cheers!

Ive just come back from travelling the world and on the majority of airlines I flyed with on economy seats.
The allowances were 20kg checked baggage that gos under the plane and 9kg hand luggage.
I had a 100litre backpack with all my clothes in and other bits of stuff that weighed 18kg and then a kite bag that weighed 7kg.
My hand luggage was around 10kg but that never got weighed at any airport so I was carrying around 35kg of luggage and never got charged the 6kg excess once.
The only airport where I nearly got charged for the excess was at Sydney airport flying to Jo'burg on Quantas.
I think the safest bet is to get to the flight check in well in advance before your flight if your carrying any excess baggage.
Jonny

Working in the industry I'm lucky enough to get 'standby' flights, so I normally only know if I have a seat when the flight closes, 40 mins before take-off. Then it's all a 'bit of a rush', to put it mildly. Turning up with an oversized bag will be severely frowned upon, as there's no time to use the oversized baggage drop-off point. At least if I can pack it all into one bag of 25kg I think I'll be in with a chance.

Jonny, can you clarify if the board bag was a second item that was checked into the hold, or did you take that into the cabin as second hand luggage? Cheers matey.

i got hold of the Best's Kite travel bag, it has Best Golfing printed down the sides. When to el medano last summer, with two boards and 4 kites and got away with not paying a bean

Just tell the check out babe, you are a pro golfer on tour.!!

Naish & NSI also do these bag, Neil's got one two.

check out www.air-head.com for more info on bags

I was thinking of getting the golf bag, but there's a distinct lack of golf courses where im going in Ras Sudr.
Ive bought the pro limit travel coffin bag. With my board a 16m and a 13m, plus shortie, harness and other bits it weighs 17kg. Im going to skimp on the clothing and travel very light, figured i'd either be in the sea all day, or just bumming around in boardies, so only need clothes for the evening. Going to wear the heaviest stuff and take my other clothes in a day pack. So should easy be under the 20kg weight allowance.

Just checked the forecast for next week in Ras Sudr on wind guru and its not looking good. Almost zero wind for the whole week. Might have to increase the weight with a few books to keep me occupied.

Hi all - I'm affraid that the subject of baggage is going to be a sore subject over the coming months/years.

I work in the airline industry and deal with airline ticketing systems. I attend regular industry meetings and can tell you that "Baggage" is the new revenue earner in the airline business.

The government has stolen your money with "Taxes" over the last few years. Well now it's time for the airlines to start clawing back the pennies.

With the increase in fuel costs over the past 12 months the airlines are looking at ways of clawing back their increaed costs. Unfortunately, baggage has a direct impact on fuel usage and therefore is being targetted.

Airlines are taking a good look at how much "free" allowance you are entitled to and as we move forward over the coming months you will start to see a steady increase in enforcement of their rules & regulations.

Ryanair has already stated they will be charging £5 per bag, not sure if there's a weight restriction, we'll have to wait and see.

The major scheduled airlines will follow suit pretty soon if not already !!

So just a word of warning guys and gals, it's gonna get tough from now on and could cost us all a small fortune.

Rich.

Here's Ryanair's latest baggage info :-

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/inpage.php?partner=BAGGAGE

Cheers kiteboy, that's useful to know. And as a golf orphan I absolutely detest that 'game' (without wishing to offend golfers) and would rather pay excess fees than be mistaken for a golfer!

What a pity Eurostar doesn't go to Egypt, or that Tarifa is two days away even by High Speed Train!

Bailerj - how do you reckon I'd do turning up with a 25kg kitebag measuring 150cm x 50cm on a space-available ID90? Guess I won't be popular, but what's the point of perks if you can't use them?!

I really dont think you'l have any problems at all with that. My 2 bags (backpack and kitebag) were separate items and together both weighed 25/26kgs and got away with it on every flight especially when your only meant to have 20kg max.
I remember meetin this German guy in New Zealand at Pungarehu road. He had brought an umbelievable amount of stuff with him on the flight. He paid a couple of hundred euros extra for the excess baggage but had a complete windsurfing kit with him, scuba diving gear, kitesurfing gear, a mountain bike and all sorts of climbing gear. Put it this way, he was in NZ for a few months and it filled his van and he brought it all over on the plane instead of shipping it indirectly.
Jonny

Hey ajdesq - ID 90 hey - lucky you - I lost all my IDs years ago - have to pay full whack with everyone else now !!

If you're on an ID then I reckon you'll be ok. They're normally a bit kinder to "staff" so go for it.

I'm off to Ras Sudr at beginin of May, so will be interested to see how you get on.

Was thinking of designing a James Bond style fold up kite board to fit in a brief case - then we could carry our boards as hand luggage - hmm - too much cider at the wekkend me thinks !!

Good luck

Rich

Well you tell us you go to the industry meetings Rich but the tan says otherwise

If your on an ID90 they'll be mean to charge you excess, never got questioned when I went on ID90 but then again was never that heavy apart from taking my Mountain Bike with me once.

As always turn up plenty early and you'll stand best chance of getting away with it. Turn up late when the check-in staff have seen the full plane, loads of heavy bags, and are pissed off with grumpy passengers, then you'll get charged.

Remember that you don't need that many clothes in Egypt, I took shorts, t-shirts, and full diving kit and was still only 18kg.

regards,
Mark

[Edited on 20-3-2006 by Mark_Sims]