Posted by mv on 08/07/06 17:23

>
>Hi John,
> You make a good point. Freelancers vs. Staffers.
>To me, it's not that camera will make it in one piece and still work.
>It's more about knowing exactly where the camera is all the time.
>You know as well as I do that the "pucker factor" is large enough
>already when we're waiting for the gear to make it through "Baggage
>Claim" and hoping that it all gets there.
>Back in the day, (that would be around 1980) when "Mini-cams" were
>REALLY scarce, the only way I could get more than two matching cameras
>in Seattle, was to ship them up via air cargo from a friend in San
>Francisco.
>All went well until one day when I got a frantic call from the guys in
>SF wondering where the camera was.
>I verified with him that the cargo manifest number I gave him three
>hours before was correct. Plus I gave him the name of the guy who
>initialed the form.
>He called back an hour later saying that they could not find the camera
>anywhere. So I went to carrier's cargo office at SeaTac to see what I
>could do.
>Well, my friend in SF is originally from NYC and has quite the
>.........vocabulary and a very colorful way of using it.
>Apparently he raised one hell of stink. So much so that someone in Air
>Cargo called the Port Authority and SF police.
>Good for him, bad for Air Cargo.
>Once he told them that the camera was worth more than forty thousand
>dollars, they shut down the cargo area, including the employee parking
>lot.
>(Now he as been there more than three hours)
>So........ another two hours go by when......... lo and behold, the
>camera, with ALL of the company identifying labels and the shipping
>label removed, magically shows up outside on the runway side of the
>loading dock.
>And THAT is why I will never ever send a camera as checked baggage.
>Whew..........
>
>Bill F.
>www.billfarnsworthvideo.com
>
>


That's a cautionary story Bill, there's one thing I always try to avoid
and that's non direct international flights. I'm particularly cautious
with KLM flights through Amsterdam, so far one out of every two
transfers with them there have resulted in delayed baggage. Ironically
I've yet to have any baggage go missing at a third world airport, though
I wouldn't like to press my luck at Lagos, Nigeria.
--
John Lubran

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