When I went to Reno, I took a couple of guns and some ammo. Been a while since I traveled with firearms so I perused American Airlines‘ rules before hand. They are here. One rule says:

Ammunition must be packed in its original packaging. Loose ammunition or clips will not be accepted.

Being the gun nut that I am, I buy my ammo in bulk. So, said ammo is in its original packaging but it is also loose. So, I call their customer service number and explain that the ammo is both loose and in its original packaging. They tell me that is OK. Cool. I get to the Knoxville airport. I tell the lady at the counter about the ammo and that I talked to customer service and they said it was OK. The nice lady at the counter said that it would be OK too. Cool, again.

Get to Reno and make the mistake of not shooting all the ammo. At the airport in Reno, I check my bags. Then I get paged over the loudspeaker. The dude at the ticket counter says that my ammo cannot be transported loose because it may rattle around and explode (by magic, I suppose). I explain to him that it, according to both their customer service number and the agent in Knoxville, was OK and that’s how I got it here. He then referred me to TSA. I talked to them and they said the airline wasn’t going to let me on the plane. The TSA folks said it didn’t matter to them but the airline made a stink. I asked the TSA folks why the wanker at American Airlines sent me to them. They said they didn’t know and it was between be and American Airlines.

Back to the ticket counter. I thanked the ticket agent for wasting both my time and that of TSA’s. Then, again, I explained to him that I had talked with American Airlines customer service and the lady in Knoxville and both said my method of transport was OK. He again said (like the non-thinking robot he was) that loose ammo was not allowed. So, I asked him if he had a trash can. He said (and I am not making this up) that the ammo had to be sealed in a bag and sent to the police. Fine. I tossed a few pounds of ammo in the bag. And I told him that, thanks to his asshattery, I would probably never fly American Airlines again, which probably explains why they lost my luggage.

I land in Knoxville and discover my luggage is lost. While they were doing the trace on it, I explained to the ticket agent in Knoxville what happened in Reno. He said (and I quote) No offense, but Reno doesn’t have it’s shit together. He again confirmed (for now the third time) that my method of transport was OK. He gave me the number of another line to lodge a complaint. So, I did. We’ll see how that goes.

Posted in uncategorized on October 10th, 2006 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |